Residential Building Wages See Fastest Growth in More Than Two Years

Residential building workers’ wage growth accelerated to 6.2% in February. After a 0.3% increase in June 2023, the year-over-year (YOY) growth rate for residential building worker wages have been trending up over the past eight months.

The recent acceleration in wage growth was mainly due to the ongoing skilled labor shortage in the construction labor market. Demand for construction labor has remained strong. As mentioned in the latest JOLTS blog, the number of open construction jobs rose to 441,000 in February, from 425,000 in January. The ongoing skilled labor shortage continues to challenge the construction sector.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, average hourly earnings (AHE) for residential building workers* was $31.40 per hour in February 2024, increasing 6.2% from $29.57 per hour a year ago. This was 14.8% higher than the manufacturing’s average hourly earnings of $27.36 per hour, 7.9% higher than transportation and warehousing ($29.10 per hour), and 14.1% lower than mining and logging ($36.55 per hour).

Note: *Data used in this post relate to production and nonsupervisory workers in the residential building industry. This group accounts for approximately two-thirds of the total employment of the residential building industry.