From the roads and bridges connecting every corner of the country, to the factories and buildings that the American workforce uses daily, the construction sector has a far-reaching impact. And with federal initiatives to expand the residential housing supply and rebuild America’s aging infrastructure, demand for construction workers is expected to grow. Despite this bright outlook, the U.S. is in the midst of a skilled worker shortage that is projected to worsen as an already aging construction workforce reaches retirement. To fill the demand, construction firms will need to recruit the next generation of skilled workers—and one way to attract more workers is with increasing pay. States with a strong union presence or prevailing wage laws tend to have the highest wages, but more so than by location, wages in the construction industry vary widely by occupation. Researchers ranked all construction and extraction occupations according to the five-year percentage change in wages from 2017 to 2022.
Construction Jobs With the Fastest-Growing Wages
The construction industry is a major component of the U.S. economy. From the roads and bridges connecting every corner of the country, to the factories and buildings that the American workforce uses daily, the construction sector has a far-reaching impact. And with federal initiatives to expand the residential housing supply and rebuild America’s aging infrastructure, demand for construction workers is expected to grow.
Despite this bright outlook, the U.S. is in the midst of a skilled worker shortage that is projected to worsen as an already aging construction workforce reaches retirement. To fill the demand, construction firms will need to recruit the next generation of skilled workers.
Construction workers have experienced continued wage growth in recent years
One way to attract more qualified workers to the construction sector is with increasing pay. Despite the fact that the construction industry already pays well compared to other occupations with similar educational requirements, construction wages are increasing. In April 2023, median weekly earnings for full-time construction and extraction occupations reached an all-time high of $982. That figure is up 7.6% from one year prior (compared to an inflation rate of 4.9% over the same time period), and a sign of the growing demand for skilled workers in the construction industry.
However, when looking at the five-year period ending in 2022—the latest year for which more granular occupation-specific data is available—wages in the construction industry failed to keep pace with inflation. At the national level, across all construction and extraction occupations, mean wages actually fell by 2.0% after accounting for rising living costs.
