Industry at a Glance: Construction Holding Steady Despite Slight Declines

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On November 12, President Donald Trump signed legislation to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. With it’s end came the restoration of critical labor and census data, allowing us to once again evaluate the economic state of the country’s construction industry. The new numbers shows a slight rebound in construction employment, a steady unemployment rate and spending, and a project pipeline with waning though still considerable strength.

While new data is being rolled out, the numbers now trail their previous release schedules, leaving blind spots. However, from the numbers we do have, we can start to again get a sense of how the construction industry is fairing on a number of fronts. For employment and unemployment, for instance, September’s U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows 8.3 million on current construction payrolls, a slight increase from the 8.29 million figure in August, and a 3.8% unemployment rate, slightly higher than the 3.2% recorded a month prior. There are also currently 182,000 construction job openings, for which August’s data is the latest available, which represents a steep 40% drop month over month, and a 45% decline year over year. This latter-half-of-the-year decline is similar to what the industry experienced in 2024; though, the drop is a bit more steep.

Spending figures for the industry are trailing more the others, with July’s data being the most up to date. Still, what we see is a slight trend downward month over month, with spending falling from $2.14 trillion in June to $2.139 trillion in July, according to U.S. Census figures. Year over year, however, spending is up 0.24% from $2.13 trillion this time last year.

construction industry data for the month of november 2025

Perhaps a better measure of where the industry is heading is Dodge Construction Network’s Momentum Index (DMI), which is a measure of construction’s project pipeline. Since September, when the last BuiltWorlds Industry at a Glance was release, the indexes for commercial and institutional construction have both experienced drops, falling 4.4% and 18.5%, respectively.

Sarah Martin, associate director of forecasting for Dodge Construction Network, acknowledge the slowed momentum in October, but assured that this wasn’t necessarily a sign of weakening.

“Activity remains solid across the board, especially for data centers and hospitals,” said Martin in a statement accompanying the October Index’s release. “However, recent growth should not solely be attributed to gains in real activity. Anticipated increases in labor and material costs are also driving up project expenses and are inflating the overall trend in the DMI. In the coming months, Dodge anticipates activity to continue to decelerate on average, especially as macroeconomic risks continue to mount.”

While Dodge’s report detailed slowed activity for warehouse and hotel construction, it pointed to data centers, office space and retail stores as supporting the industry’s overall long-term momentum.

“The influx of high-value data center work, compounded by inflationary cost pressures, continues to support elevated DMI levels,” stated Martin. “Overall, nonresidential construction is expected to strengthen in 2027, led primarily by data center and healthcare projects. Other nonresidential sectors are more likely to face softer demand and heightened macroeconomic risks.”