Construction jobs decrease, wage gains increase.

By Jim Haughey, Director, Research and Analytics, Reed Construction Data

Construction employment in the U.S. market has been declining for six months and will continue to decline for another six months. However, job losses are not yet substantial enough to stop gains in construction wage rates, which have been accelerating for nearly two years.

Construction employment peaked last September at 7.725 million jobs and will decline by about 100,000 jobs through late 2007. By the end of 2008, those 100,000 jobs will be added back as a result of a slowly recovering housing market-but the jobs will be entirely in the new home construction sector. Additional …