Construction employment rose in 180 of 360 metro areas and metro divisions between September 2025 and September 2026, fell in 118 and held flat in 62, according to a ranking the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) built from the Bureau of Labor Statistics metro release of October 28. The metro figures are preliminary and not seasonally adjusted, which is why AGC compares September with September. Nationally, BLS counts 8,364,000 construction jobs in September 2026, seasonally adjusted and preliminary. That is 11,000 more than August and 109,000 more than September 2025, a gain of 1.3%. It is the highest count in the 25 months charted below and about 54,000 above the 12-month average of roughly 8,310,000.
National construction employment reached its highest count in 25 months
All employees, construction, thousands, seasonally adjusted
| Month | Employment (000s) | MoM change (000s) | YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 2025 | 8,255 | 16 | 0.0% |
| Oct 2025 | 8,243 | -12 | -0.2% |
| Nov 2025 | 8,279 | 36 | 0.1% |
| Dec 2025 | 8,272 | -7 | -0.1% |
| Jan 2026 | 8,317 | 45 | 0.6% |
| Feb 2026 | 8,296 | -21 | 0.3% |
| Mar 2026 | 8,311 | 15 | 0.5% |
| Apr 2026 | 8,314 | 3 | 0.5% |
| May 2026 | 8,316 | 2 | 0.6% |
| Jun 2026 | 8,319 | 3 | 0.6% |
| Jul 2026 | 8,337 | 18 | 0.9% |
| Aug 2026 | 8,353 | 16 | 1.4% |
| Sep 2026 | 8,364 | 11 | 1.3% |
What moved
The same four metros led the count for a second month. Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands added 13,800 construction jobs over the year, a 5% increase to 269,300. Baton Rouge added 12,300 and again had the largest percentage gain, 27%, taking it from 46,400 to 58,700 jobs. St. Louis and Columbus, Ohio each added 10,700, for gains of 13% and 17%. Minneapolis-St. Paul (7,600) and Phoenix (5,900) came next.
Louisiana shows up more often in the percentage list than any other state. Lafayette (15%), Shreveport-Bossier City (14%), Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux (11%) and New Orleans-Metairie (10%) all sit in AGC’s top group alongside Baton Rouge.
| Metro area or division | BLS series | Sep 2025 | Sep 2026 | Change | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands TX | Construction | 255,500 | 269,300 | 13,800 | 5% |
| Baton Rouge LA | Construction | 46,400 | 58,700 | 12,300 | 27% |
| St. Louis MO-IL | Mining, logging and construction | 80,300 | 91,000 | 10,700 | 13% |
| Columbus OH | Mining, logging and construction | 62,400 | 73,100 | 10,700 | 17% |
| Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington MN-WI | Mining, logging and construction | 99,700 | 107,300 | 7,600 | 8% |
| Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler AZ | Construction | 178,000 | 183,900 | 5,900 | 3% |
| Pittsburgh PA | Construction | 61,400 | 58,000 | -3,400 | -6% |
| Lakewood-New Brunswick NJ (div.) | Mining, logging and construction | 55,500 | 51,900 | -3,600 | -6% |
| Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario CA | Construction | 109,600 | 105,700 | -3,900 | -4% |
| Oakland-Fremont-Berkeley CA (div.) | Construction | 72,000 | 67,600 | -4,400 | -6% |
| Jersey City-White Plains NY-NJ | Mining, logging and construction | 71,200 | 66,700 | -4,500 | -6% |
| Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell GA (div.) | Construction | 109,800 | 104,700 | -5,100 | -5% |
On the loss side, the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell metro division dropped 5,100 jobs, or 5%. Jersey City-White Plains lost 4,500, the Oakland-Fremont-Berkeley division lost 4,400 and Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario lost 3,900. Anchorage had the steepest percentage loss at 10%, a drop of 1,400 jobs to 12,000.
So the count improved slightly from a month ago. AGC’s August ranking counted 177 metros with gains and 126 with losses, which makes September’s count three higher on gains and eight lower on losses. The leaders’ annual gains narrowed a little: Houston went from 14,100 to 13,800 and Baton Rouge from 29% to 27%.
AGC reads the split by project type. Chief economist Ken Simonson said there is often “a correlation between where data centers or large power and manufacturing facilities are getting built and which metro areas are adding new construction jobs.” AGC attributes the weakness elsewhere to materials prices and interest rates. The release does not tie any single metro’s gain to a named project, so that link is AGC’s general reading of the map.
The BLS release shows Washington-Arlington-Alexandria losing 61,000 nonfarm jobs over the year, the largest decline of any metro, while construction in its Arlington-Alexandria-Reston division fell 2,100, or 2%.
How to use this number
Metro construction employment is the nearest public count of the labor pool your crews and subcontractors draw from. Both uses below rely on the year-over-year change, because the metro figures are not seasonally adjusted.
- Compare the change in your own field headcount from September 2025 to September 2026 with your metro’s change. If your metro grew 13% and your self-performed headcount is flat, you are recruiting against local competitors who added crews over the year, and your wage assumptions should account for that. If your metro lost jobs and you held headcount, you now employ a larger share of a smaller local workforce.
- Before you bid labor-heavy work in an unfamiliar metro, look it up in AGC’s alphabetical list. A 27% gain like Baton Rouge’s means the local workforce grew by more than a quarter in a year. Build that into your wage assumptions and into the number of subs you expect to bid.
Revisions and caveats
The September metro figures are preliminary. The BLS technical note says employment estimates are benchmarked once a year to a full count of jobs from unemployment insurance tax records, and that benchmark can move a metro’s level for past months.
The national figure was revised too. BLS first reported August construction employment at 8,359,000. The September release lowered August to 8,353,000, so the August monthly gain is now 16,000.
Three details in AGC’s method matter when you read the ranking:
- In most metros BLS publishes construction only inside a combined mining, logging and construction series, because samples are small. AGC counts all of it as construction. St. Louis, Columbus and Minneapolis-St. Paul are in that group, so part of their totals may be mining or logging jobs.
- BLS rounds metro employment to the nearest 100. AGC ranks percentage changes to the nearest whole percent, so many metros tie. Hanford-Corcoran, Calif. ranks third for percentage loss at 8%, a change of 100 jobs.
- The ranking counts metro divisions separately and leaves out the parent metro totals to avoid double counting. The Atlanta figure covers only the Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell division.
BLS cites metro job changes only when they are statistically significant at the 90% confidence level, meaning large enough that sampling chance is an unlikely explanation. It publishes sampling error for detailed series such as construction only on request (it lists 373 of 387 metros as essentially unchanged in total nonfarm jobs), so a swing of a few hundred construction jobs in a small metro could be survey noise. The national series in the chart is seasonally adjusted and comes from a different estimate, so compare it with the metro figures only year over year.