San Diego – Construction Coverage recently released a new report looking at wage growth in the construction industry.
The report found that, more so than by location, wages in the construction industry vary widely by occupation, and some roles have shown more recent wage growth than others. To find the construction jobs with the fastest-growing wages, researchers at Construction Coverage analyzed the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The researchers ranked all construction and extraction occupations according to the five-year percentage change in wages from 2017 to 2022. In the event of a tie, the occupation with the higher mean annual wage in 2022 was ranked higher.
According to the report, despite the fact that the construction industry already pays well compared to other occupations with similar educational requirements, construction wages are increasing. In April 2023, median weekly earnings for full-time construction and extraction occupations reached an all-time high of $982. That figure is up 7.6% from one year prior (compared to an inflation rate of 4.9% over the same time period), and a sign of the growing demand for skilled workers in the construction industry.
However, when looking at the five-year period ending in 2022 – the latest year for which more granular occupation-specific data is available – wages in the construction industry failed to keep pace with inflation. At the national level, across all construction and extraction occupations, mean wages actually fell by 2.0% after accounting for rising living costs.
Some locations are better than others for construction workers. States with a strong union presence or prevailing wage laws tend to have the highest wages. Most of these locations are found in Northeastern and Western states. Illinois leads the nation with a cost-of-living adjusted mean annual wage of $73,226 in 2022, followed by Massachusetts ($70,846), Alaska ($69,974), and Hawaii ($68,756). In contrast, many of the lowest-paying states are found in the South, including the bottom three states for construction occupations: Florida ($47,412), Arkansas ($49,494), and South Carolina ($49,876).
In terms of wage growth, the Mountain West region saw some of the largest wage gains in the construction industry. New Mexico (+25.9%), Nevada (+23.0%), Idaho (+22.6%), Utah (+21.6%), and Montana (+19.0%) all rank in the top 10 for their increases in mean wages for construction workers from 2017 to 2022. The recent population growth in Mountain West states has likely contributed to increased demand for construction workers to build the housing and infrastructure needed to accommodate the increase in residents.
Construction jobs with the fastest-growing wages
