Economic Indicators
Construction Job Openings Reach 10 Month High
New hires declined both month-over-month and year-over-year in May.
Two hundred ninety-eight thousand job openings were reported in the construction industry in May, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, recently released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The figure is 32,000 higher than April’s job openings and 76,000 higher than the number reported in May 2025.
May’s construction industry job openings reached “a 10-month high,” Anirban Basu, chief economist at Associated Builders and Contractors, noted in a statement. “Unfortunately, that increase likely reflects exceptional demand for certain occupations critical to data center buildouts, like electricians, rather than increased industrywide demand for labor.”
There were 295,000 hires in May, down 24,000 from the previous month and down 50,000 from May 2025. Total separations, which include layoffs, discharges and quits, reached 305,000, up 18,000 from April but down 49,000 year-over-year. While quits declined by 28,000 between April and May, layoff activity increased, rising by 47,000 month-over-month.
“The construction hiring rate fell sharply in May and, at 3.5%, matches February’s all-time low," said Basu. “Rising layoff activity and a falling quit rate also suggest that demand for construction labor weakened in May.”
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