Residential Construction Jobs Almost Entirely Recovered

Residential construction employment has nearly entirely recovered from its dramatic drop in March and April, but the same cannot be said for non-residential construction. Overall, job gains continued their upward trajectory in November, but at a much slower pace, reports the National Association of Home Builders. While total construction industry employment totaled 7.4 million last month, non-residential construction jobs are trailing behind residential. The residential construction industry recovered 96% of jobs lost in March and April, while non-residential has only recovered 58%. Non-residential job recovery is more aligned with the country’s overall employment recovery, which lost 22.2 million jobs and has recovered 12.3 million since.

In November, total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 245,000, reported in the Employment Situation Summary. It marks the seventh consecutive month of increases. After four consecutive months above one-million gain, job gains decelerated in the past three months. The November gain was the smallest increase since the labor market started to recover in May. The September increase was revised up by 39,000 from 672,000 to 711,000, and the October increase was revised down by 28,000 from 638,000 to 610,000.

Due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the economy lost 22.2 million jobs in March and April. Since May, 12.3 million jobs have been created. In November, total nonfarm employment was 9.8 million lower than its February level.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate edged down to 6.7% in November. This was 8.0 percentage points lower than its recent high of 14.7% in April and 3.2 percentage points higher than the rate in February. The number of unemployed persons declined by 0.3 million to 10.7 million.

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