Q2 2023: Labor Updates

Jun 1

Public high schools are offering more vocational and S.T.E.M. programs which might soon help to fill the skilled-labor gap in the US. [2]

At one point, high schools replaced auto-body shops and home-economic shops with computer labs because tech was up-and-coming. Now there has been another one-eighty. [2]

It would take 12 years for federal and state government-registered apprenticeship programs to educate the more than half a million workers the construction industry needs to hire in 2023 and estimates show that the construction industry’s federal and state government-registered apprenticeship system yielded just 45,000 completers of four-to-five-year apprenticeship programs in 2022. [3]

Construction Unemployment Rates [4]

The Top Five States: states with the lowest March 2023 estimated NSA construction unemployment rates were:

Colorado, 1.4%
South Dakota, 1.5%
Nebraska, 1.9%
Utah, 2.4%
Tennessee, 2.7%

With the exception of Utah, all of these states posted their lowest March NSA construction unemployment rate on record. Tennessee matched

its lowest March construction unemployment rate set last year. South Dakota had the biggest monthly drop in its rate, down 4.3%.

The Bottom Five States: states with the highest March 2023 estimated NSA construction unemployment rates were:

Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wyoming (tied), 8%
Rhode Island, 8.2%
Nevada, 9%
Ohio, 9.3%
Alaska, 13.4%

Michigan and Rhode Island notched their lowest March construction unemployment rate on record. Pennsylvania had the second largest monthly decline in its rate (down 3.8%), behind South Dakota.

[2] Owen, D. (2023, April 24). The Great Electrician Shortage. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/news/dept-of-energy/the-great-electrician-shortage?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=DHStories&utm_brand=tny&utm_content=insta gram-stories&utm_social-type=owned

[3] Associated Builders and Contractors. (2023, May 3). https://www.abc.org/News-Media/News-Releases/entryid/19933/abc-government-registered-apprenticeship-system-alone-wont-solve-constructionlabor-shortage

[4] Associated Builders and Contractors. (2023, May 3). https://www.abc.org/News-Media/News-Releases/entryid/19922/abc-construction-unemployment-is-down-in-32-states-from-a-year-ago