The construction industry had 231,000 job openings on the last day of January—down 14,000 from December and 1,000 from the same time last year, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. JOLTS defines a job opening as any unfilled position for which an employer is actively recruiting.
“While construction hiring accelerated in January, rising to the fastest rate since the first half of 2025, that’s unfortunately not saying much,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “The industry’s hiring rate is still slower than at any point between the start of the data series in 2001 and the end of 2019. Contractors remain confident that their staffing levels will expand over the next six months, according to ABC’s Construction Confidence Index, although that confidence has remained intact for much of the past several years while hiring has remained subdued.”
