CKE WEEKLY JOBS INTELLIGENCE REPORT

 

 Construction Labor Market Stats 

As of February 22nd, 2026

Construction Job Openings & Labor Demand

  • Construction job openings increased to 292k in December 2025 (SA), up 8k from November and up 87k from December 2024; the openings rate rose to 3.4% (vs 2.4% a year earlier).  (Meaning On the whole, the average hiring has increase this year as well as compared to the same time last year)  
  • The broader labor market is cooling on the demand side: total job openings fell to 6.542M in December (down from 6.928M in November, and below 7.508M a year earlier), while construction moved up.  (Meaning - overall the job demand has slowed down but construction is healthy at this time) 
  • Turnover inside construction rose: hires were 347k in December (hire rate 4.2%) and total separations were 342k (separations rate 4.1%), both higher than November-suggesting higher churn even as openings rose. (Meaning as fast as employees are being hired, they are either leaving or being let go) This could be due to many reasons. In my opinion, either construction companies are filling spots with unqualified employees or the employees left due to being unhappy with their selection) 

Construction employment change

  • Construction payroll employment rose by 33k in January 2026, bringing total construction employment to 8.308M (SA). Over the last 12 months, construction added 44k jobs (+0.5%).  (Meaning construction is slowly improving)
  • The January gains skewed nonresidential. The underlying BLS sub-sector detail shows: nonresidential building (+3.6k) and nonresidential specialty trades (+25.1k) drove most of the increase, while heavy and civil was slightly negative (-0.8k). (Meaning - besides residential construction, the overall construction industry is healthy, except heavy and civil work which has gone down) 
  • Residential was modestly positive MoM but weaker YoY: residential building was essentially flat (+0.3k MoM) and residential specialty trades rose (+5.6k MoM), yet those same categories show year-over-year declines in the seasonally adjusted levels (residential building and residential specialty trades).  (Meaning- residential cnstruction is down but those specialty trades like HVAC, Plumbing, Electric are on the hiring increase which could mean companies are hiring for repairs and the specialty trades need to hire to keep up with the demand) 
  • Treat the broader jobs backdrop as “less stable than it looks” because of benchmarking: BLS revised the March 2025 seasonally adjusted total nonfarm employment level downward by 898k, and revised 2025 job growth from +584k to +181k. This matters because it changes the confidence you should place in trend narratives. (Meaning - due to this correction in the revised Job Growth, trends cannot be verifiably accurate) 

 

     

JB's Take on the Report

 

In short, these are your highlights:

1. Construction labor demand remains elevated.

2. Overall hiring remains tight and inconsistent.

3. Competition for skilled labor is still strong.

4. Success will depend more on proactive recruiting, retention, and internal training than on waiting for market conditions to ease.