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Builders Continue Hiring Spree07-15-15 | News

Builders Continue Hiring Spree

The construction industry leads a group of sectors in the area of hirings in the month of May, but it also ranks as the lowest in terms of job openings unfilled, according to a recent report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Construction firms continue to hire workers at a brisk pace, but the number of available openings clearly isn't keeping up with the demand.

Even though unfilled jobs in construction rose in May, the number of openings in this sector is the lowest of all the industries tracked by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In the construction industry alone, the hiring level was at 5.0 percent on a month-to-month basis, as 322,000 workers were added to the payrolls of building companies in the month. That compares to 345,000 workers, or 5.4 percent in April. It stood at 5.3 percent in May 2014.

On a percentage basis, only two other sectors had higher numbers in the month of May, and the data suggests demand remains strong for building projects.

On the flip side, BLS job openings data points to a shortage of qualified construction and building trades workers, and that the labor pool for these types of jobs is drying up.

The number of unfilled construction jobs increased from 137,000, or 2.1 percent in April, to 149,000, or 2.3 percent in May. Those figures, for both April and May, are the lowest of all the sectors listed in the BLS monthly report.