Report: Metro Detroit A Hot Spot For Construction Jobs
SOUTHFIELD (WWJ) - Metro Detroit is currently among the hot spots for construction. That's according to the Associated General Contractors of America, which says southeast Michigan saw 3,400 jobs added in the past year -- an increase of 18 percent.
In a media release out Monday, association officials said local employment data remains relatively split as private sector demand increased and public sector activity declined more rapidly during the past year.
"The construction market is caught between increases in private sector demand and even larger decreases in public sector construction investments," said Ken Simonson, the association's chief economist.
He noted that private sector spending on construction has grown by 5.5 percent since July 2010 while public sector demand declined by 8.8 percent during the same time period. "Construction employment continues to be stuck in a pattern where there are just as many hot spots as there are slow spots," Simonson said.
The Houston area and the region between Chicago and Milwaukee topped the country. Losing the most jobs were the Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Las Vegas metropolitan areas.
Association officials said the two most important steps Washington officials could take to boost construction employment are passing long-term infrastructure bills and reconsidering many of the costly regulatory obstacles that have been put in place. They noted that even as highway and transit legislation has languished, state and local officials are being forced to spend billions of limited transportation funds on butterfly bridges and bat-safe highway lighting.
"It's like we are trying to rebuild our economy with two hands tied behind our back," said the association's chief executive officer Stephen Sandherr. "We're penny pinching on infrastructure even as we allow entitlement spending to spiral out of control, while we are doing a lot of things to inflate the cost and delay the completion of infrastructure projects."
Click the links to view construction employment figures by state and by rank (.pdf format).
