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News Briefs

Date Posted: January 22 2010

Big dip for wages in construction

The Great Recession has caught up with construction wages and benefits – and how.

Construction industry collective bargaining agreements in 2009 often brought about low or no wage and benefit increases. And where wage increases were agreed to, the additional money was usually allocated to pension funds.

As researched by the Construction Labor Research Council and reported by theConstruction Labor Report, settlements for labor agreements in 2009 averaged $1.23 or 2.8 percent for the first year. The last time the average first year increase was under 3 percent was in 1996.

In 2008, the first year of construction labor settlements was $1.95 per hour or 4.6 percent. Between 1999 and two years ago, the average of first year settlement increases ranged from 3.8 to 4.6 percent.

The numbers were worse In the East North Central Region, which includes Michigan, where wage and benefit increases in 2009 amounted to $1.15 per hour or 2.5 percent.

Construction a drag on U.S. economy

Deteriorating demand for construction services continued to drag on the economy as new federal figures show another 53,000 construction workers lost their jobs in December and the industry’s unemployment rate climbed to 22.7 percent, the Associated General Contractors of America reported Jan. 12.

Overall U.S. unemployment held steady at 10.0 percent in December .

“If it wasn’t for construction, our economic picture would actually be getting slightly better,” said the AGC’s chief economist, Ken Simonson. “Unfortunately, construction layoffs are dragging down the broader employment picture.”

Simonson noted that outside of construction, non-farm payroll employment rose by 31,000, seasonally adjusted, in November and shrank by 32,000 in December . Construction, however, lost 80,000 more jobs in both months, he added, while the industry’s unemployment rate, not seasonally adjusted, is now more than double the all-industry rate.

According to the new federal employment figures, more than 2 million construction workers are currently unemployed and 934,000 construction workers lost their jobs during the past 12 months alone.