Overall construction unemployment hit 27.1 percent in February, according to a report released March 5 by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, prompting ABC the same day to call on Congress and the administration to act immediately to free up lending, increase access to capital and decrease the tax burden on the construction industry in order to create jobs.
“More than one-quarter of the nation’s construction workforce is now unemployed,” said 2010 ABC National Chairman Jim Elmer. “Yet Congress and the president continue to consider ‘jobs legislation’ that will have little or no effect on the construction industry. This is unacceptable.”
In addition to an overall construction unemployment rate that is nearly three times the national average, the March 5 jobs report also showed a loss of 9,600 jobs from the nonresidential construction sector and not much hope for improvement in the coming months, according to ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu.
“The implication is that job growth is likely to continue to elude most construction segments in the months ahead, with the possible exception of those directly impacted by the ongoing stimulus spending,” Basu said.
In order to kick-start the lagging economy and put the men and women of the construction industry back to work, ABC unveiled a jobs proposal on March 2. The jobs proposal recommends the following: eliminating uncertainty in the business environment by calling on Congress and the administration to focus on free-enterprise initiatives and open competition instead of anti-business legislative and regulatory proposals; increasing access to capital for new construction projects and viable, low-risk projects that simply need funding in order for work to commence; providing meaningful tax relief and reducing the tax burden on hard-working Americans and small businesses; enacting a national comprehensive energy plan that includes new construction and upgrades to the nation’s insufficient and crumbling infrastructure; allowing the entire construction industry workforce to participate on federally funded or federally assisted projects; and supporting construction training programs that will attract new skilled workers.
For more information about ABC’s Construction Jobs Creation Proposal, click
here.
For more information about construction employment, click
here.