The construction industry had 306,000 job openings on the last day of July 2025, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS). Industry job openings increased by 64,000 and are up by 77,000 from the same time last year.
JOLTS defines a job opening as any unfilled position for which an employer is actively recruiting.
“The construction job opening rate rose to the highest level in over a year during July,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu. “Given the ongoing decline in nonresidential construction spending, however, that increase is likely attributable to immigration policy and its effects on the industry’s labor force rather than any increases in the demand for construction workers.”
In fact, “Other portions of this data release suggest an alarming deterioration in industrywide labor demand,” Basu said. “Fewer construction workers quit their jobs in July than in any month over the past nine years — suggesting widespread concern about job security — while layoffs jumped to the highest level since the first quarter of 2023.”
However, Basu pointed out that JOLTS data can be volatile from month to month.
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“It’s difficult to know the degree to which undocumented workers are or are not captured in the data,” he said. “More than 55 percent of ABC members expect to increase their staffing levels over the next six months, according to the July reading of [ABC’s] Construction Confidence Index. That measure will be critical to monitor in the months ahead.”
Graphics courtesy of ABC. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
