PROVIDENCE – Employment in the Rhode Island construction industry in November was 10 percent below the level of a year earlier, according to an analysis of federal figures by the Associated General Contractors of America released this week.
A separate report from the U.S. Commerce Department showed construction spending nationwide fell for the seventh straight month in November, reducing it to the lowest level in more than six years.
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The association said construction employed 18,300 people in Rhode Island in November 2009, down from 20,400 in November 2008. The Providence-Fall River-Warwick metropolitan area saw employment fall to 22,000 from 25,000, a 12 percent drop.
Nationwide, construction employment declined in 324 out of 337 metropolitan areas during the past year as spending on construction projects dropped by more than $137 billion to a six-year low of $900 billion in November, the association said.
“Private nonresidential construction is in freefall, with every category except private power construction down sharply compared to a year ago,” Ken Simonson, the contractors association’s chief economist, said in a statement. “Those cuts are causing layoffs in virtually every part of the country for tens of thousands of skilled construction workers.”
Simonson said that nationwide private lodging investments were down 46 percent; retail, warehouse and farm spending were down 41 percent and private office construction investments were down 39 percent in November. He also suggested that a recovery in homebuilding may spark some improvement in retail construction later this year, and higher education and hospital construction may come back in the second half of 2010.
Simonson noted that public construction benefited from federal stimulus funds, with a year-over-year increase of 2.7 percent. He predicted, however, those gains will continue to be tempered by sharp cutbacks in projects financed directly by states, local governments and school systems.
