U.S. construction market: spend, employment and backlog
These figures are pulled automatically from federal statistical feeds — not transcribed from a static report. Each number keeps its period, its source and the moment we retrieved it. Where a source publishes no machine-readable feed, the card says so rather than showing an estimate.
Page generated 2026-10-17 18:08 UTC
Construction employment by state
Statewide construction employment from the BLS State and Area Employment program. State-level construction spending is not published by any federal feed, so it is not shown rather than split out of the national figure.
Construction employment (Massachusetts)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — State and Area Employment (SMS25000002000000001) · seasonally adjusted · monthly
169.5k jobs
Oct 2024
-0.1%
vs prior month
-1.9%
vs year ago
Design services employment by state
Private architectural, engineering and related services employment (NAICS 5413) by state, from the BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. The State and Area Employment program publishes only broad supersectors at state level, so QCEW is the only federal source for this industry by state — it is an establishment census, is not seasonally adjusted, and publishes about two quarters behind the national series above.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (private, NAICS 5413, area 25000) · monthly
43,480 jobs
Oct 2024
+0.8%
vs prior month
-0.8%
vs year ago
Construction spending
Value of construction put in place, seasonally adjusted annual rate.
Private construction spending (U.S., annual rate)
U.S. Census Bureau — Value of Construction Put in Place · seasonally adjusted · monthly
$1.734T
Oct 2024
-0.6%
vs prior month
+4.4%
vs year ago
Public construction spending (U.S., annual rate)
U.S. Census Bureau — Value of Construction Put in Place · seasonally adjusted · monthly
$0.530T
Oct 2024
+2.3%
vs prior month
+10.8%
vs year ago
Total construction spending (U.S., annual rate)
U.S. Census Bureau — Value of Construction Put in Place · seasonally adjusted · monthly
$2.264T
Oct 2024
+0.0%
vs prior month
+5.8%
vs year ago
Construction employment
Payroll employment and earnings for the construction sector.
Construction average hourly earnings (U.S.)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Current Employment Statistics (CES2000000003) · seasonally adjusted · monthly
$38.69/hr
Oct 2024
+0.4%
vs prior month
+4.5%
vs year ago
Construction employment (U.S., all employees)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Current Employment Statistics (CES2000000001) · seasonally adjusted · monthly
8.26M jobs
Oct 2024
+0.1%
vs prior month
+2.3%
vs year ago
Design services
Architectural, engineering and related services (NAICS 5413) — design demand, reported separately from construction and not included in the construction figures above.
Architectural & engineering services average hourly earnings (national)
How much contracted work the industry is carrying forward.
Construction backlog (industry indicator, months)
Operator-entered industry backlog indicator · monthly
No published value yet
No public machine-readable feed exists for construction backlog. Values appear only when an operator records a quotable published figure; otherwise this series is intentionally empty.
Provenance: every observation stores the source URL, the reported period and our retrieval timestamp. Values are never averaged, interpolated or backfilled; a missing period stays missing until the source publishes it.