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Covid-Related Job Losses Hit Residential Construction
Monday, April 6, 2020
The Jobless Claims Report and the Employment
Situation Report and were both pretty devastating last week with more than 6
million new unemployment claims filed on top of 3 million the prior week and
701,000 jobs lost. The unemployment rate jumped nearly a full point to 4.4
percent. Jing Fu, writing in the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) Eye
on Housing Blog, says the residential construction industry received its
fair share of the pain. Employment in residential construction
had been doing well, it was up by 24,100 in February, but that reversed in
March, undoubtedly due to impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, and 4,300 jobs
were lost. The total loss across all construction categories was 29,000 jobs. Those
losses, however, paled in comparison to the massive ones in the leisure and
hospitality industry as hotels shut down, restaurants closed, and cruises were
cancelled. Three other job categories also pulled back more dramatically than
construction.
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