The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Construction jobless rate stays high in Ga.
Metro Atlanta hiring offsets state slippage. Sector’s presence as part of larger economy continues to shrink.
Eight years after the housing bubble burst, Georgia has the nation’s second-highest unemployment rate among construction workers.
The picture would look worse were it not for a burst of hiring in metro Atlanta during the past year, spurred by some large projects along with a modest rebound in homebuilding.
The jobless rate in Georgia’s construction sector in June was 9.4 percent, the same rate as West Virginia, according to Associated Builders and Contractors. Only Mississippi’s rate of 9.9 percent was higher.
That compares to June’s overall jobless rate of 6.1 percent in Georgia and 5.3 percent nationally.
Georgia added about 500 construction jobs statewide, but more than 4,000 were in metro Atlanta. That means the rest of the state saw slippage. Metro Atlanta accounts for about two-thirds of the construction jobs in Georgia.
The region has seen growth in construction of buildings, as well as industrial and civil construction and homebuilding, said Kenneth Simonson, chief economist for Associated Builders and Contractors.
A year ago, the construction unemployment rate in Georgia was 10.5 percent, he said.
“Employment in each category has grown for the past three years but remains well below the June peak in 2007.”
Back then, metro Atlanta had more than 140,000 construction workers. Five years later, there were about 87,400. That has now rebounded to about 105,900, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Construction was pounded during the housing crisis as nearly all building was halted — both residential and commercial. And the damage is evident not just in the number of construction jobs missing, but in the sector’s shrinking pres-
ence in the economy: Construction now accounts for about 4 percent of the metro Atlanta jobs, down from 5.7 percent in 2007.
The figures do not include thousands of related jobs — from accountants to architects to attorneys.
Despite the state’s high jobless rate in the sector, Atlanta was one of roughly half the metro areas in America that added construction jobs during the past year.
The value of residential construction — including apartment buildings — in metro Atlanta so far this year is up 39 percent, according to Dodge Data & Analytics, a New York- based data analysis company. The value of non-residential projects started in 2015 was up 4 percent thus far.
Spending on construction in Georgia this year should jump of 22.3 percent and next year by 5.1 percent, according to Alex Carrick, chief economist for CMD, a Norcross-based research group.
The past year has seen an acceleration in some big-ticket construction, including two pro sports stadiums and a number of large-scale corporate projects.
The Seattle area added the most construction jobs, gaining 11,300 jobs, followed by Denver with 10,200 jobs.
The largest construction losses were in New Orleans, which shed 2,700 jobs.