The current state of the construction industry in the USA
Barry Hiscox FCInstCES
Avid readers of CES will remember that after emigrating to America, former president Barry Hiscox began writing a series a letters surrounding the successes and challenges facing the construction industry in USA. Now, following a break, here’s the first letter in a return to that popular series ‘Letter from America’...
THE US construction sector is currently enjoying a growth trend which amounted to a market size of $1.98tr for 2023, involving some 745,000 construction businesses employing 7.8m employees annually with 85,000 new job openings and accounting for approximately 4.3% of the US gross domestic product (GDP).
Construction jobs
Due to growth and replacement needs an approximate 730,000 yearly openings are expected. Approximately 4.9% of the entire US workforce is employed in the construction industry. 11% of all US construction workers are women and a growth rate of 11% is predicted.
Pay analysis
It is interesting to compare the differences in levels of pay with UK construction workers – for analysis purposes the equivalence conversions to UK currency are based on an average rate of $1.25 to £1.00. US construction workers average pay in 2023 was $49,810/£39,848 compared with $48,310/£38,648 across all occupations. In 2023 the average hourly earnings for all construction industry workers was $32.16/£25.73. The table below shows the pay ranges per occupation.
The average of the highest states paid construction labourers are shown in the table below.
The five biggest construction companies in America, along with the spend per sector and spend per specific areas are shown in the table below.
Infrastructure progress since the introduction of the Biden/Harris initiative
When President Biden signed the bi-partisan initiative into law in November 2021 he committed to delivering ‘once-in-a-generation’ investment to rebuild America’s infrastructure and competitiveness. Today, his administration is cutting ribbons and breaking ground across the country to rebuild US roads and bridges, delivering clean and safe water, tackling legacy pollution, expanding access to high speed internet and building a ‘clean energy’ economy for all Americans.
To date his administration has announced nearly $454bn in bi-partisan infrastructure law funding, including over 56,000 specific projects in awards, across 4,500 communities in all 50 states, the Territories and for Tribes.
Due to the bi-partisan law alone, the administration has already impacted significant elements, including:
- The launching of improvements on 165,000 miles of roads and repair projects to 9,400 bridges.
- Delivering funding for more than 450 port and waterway projects.
- Investing in over 300 airport terminals.
- Funding more than 1,400 dirty water and waste water improvement projects across the USA
- Funding 500 water projects for storage, desalinisation etc. to improve drought resistance across the West.
It is hoped that the improvement measures currently in place under the present administration will not be altered or put at risk due to any change in fiscal policy.
Barry Hiscox FCInstCES Past President, CICES