Construction job openings fell 16% to 251,000 in August after BLS cut July to 299,000

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 11:38:56 -0400

Construction employers had 251,000 job openings on the last business day of August 2026, according to the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) the Bureau of Labor Statistics released on September 29. The figure is seasonally adjusted and preliminary. It is 48,000 below July, a drop of 16.1%, and 38,000 above August 2025, a gain of 17.8%. The construction job openings rate, which is openings as a share of employment plus openings, fell to 2.9% from 3.5%. BLS also revised July down to 299,000 from the 326,000 it first published on September 1. August lands almost exactly on the 12-month average of 250,750 and ranks 10th among the last 25 months.

Openings fell back to their 12-month average

Construction job openings, thousands, seasonally adjusted, last business day of the month

August 2026 is preliminary. July 2026 is revised. Source: fred.stlouisfed.org

Construction job openings, last 13 months
Month	Openings (000s)	MoM	YoY
Aug 2025	213	-30.2%	-37.7%
Sep 2025	206	-3.3%	-16.3%
Oct 2025	196	-4.8%	-18.7%
Nov 2025	292	49.0%	25.3%
Dec 2025	245	-16.1%	81.5%
Jan 2026	230	-6.1%	-0.9%
Feb 2026	201	-12.6%	-21.2%
Mar 2026	234	16.4%	-15.8%
Apr 2026	266	13.7%	28.5%
May 2026	291	9.4%	31.1%
Jun 2026	298	2.4%	33.0%
Jul 2026	299	0.3%	-2.0%
Aug 2026	251	-16.1%	17.8%

Source: bls.gov

What moved

The other construction flows in the release moved in the same direction as openings. Hires fell to 308,000 from 358,000 in July, and the hires rate dropped to 3.7% from 4.3%. Layoffs and discharges fell further, to 99,000 from 157,000, which took the layoff rate to 1.2% from 1.9%. Quits were close to flat at 152,000 against 149,000 in July.

Construction labor flows, seasonally adjusted
Measure	Aug 2025 (000s)	Jul 2026 (000s)	Aug 2026 (000s)	Aug 2026 rate
Job openings	213	299	251	2.9%
Hires	336	358	308	3.7%
Quits	150	149	152	1.8%
Layoffs and discharges	182	157	99	1.2%

Source: bls.gov

So compare August with a year earlier. Openings are up 38,000 from August 2025, while hires are down 28,000 from 336,000 and layoffs are down 83,000 from 182,000. One reading is that contractors are keeping the crews they have and filling open positions more slowly than they did a year ago. BLS does not describe it that way, and one month of preliminary figures from a sample survey is not enough to confirm it.

Across the whole economy, openings were 7.1 million in August, and BLS said openings changed little in every industry. That statement covers construction’s 48,000 decline, so BLS did not treat the drop as a clear change from July.

How to use this number

Two uses for a contractor:

Compute your own openings rate the way BLS does. Take open field and office requisitions on the last business day of the month and divide by headcount plus those open requisitions. As an example, a firm with 120 employees and 6 open positions has a rate of 6 / 126, or 4.8%. That is well above the 2.9% construction rate for August. If your rate stays above the industry rate for several months, your positions are staying open longer than the typical construction employer’s, and you can check whether pay, location or trade mix explains it.
Watch hires and layoffs together when you staff next year’s backlog. Construction employers laid off or discharged 99,000 workers in August, down from 182,000 in August 2025. If layoffs stay near that level into the winter, fewer recently released workers will be looking for a job when you recruit for a spring start, and it makes sense to open requisitions earlier than you did last year.

Revisions and caveats

August is preliminary. BLS will revise it when it publishes September data on November 3, 2026. The July revision shows how much that can move the construction number:

BLS first published July construction openings at 326,000 on September 1.
The September 29 release revised July to 299,000, a cut of 27,000.
On first-published figures, August would look like a drop of 75,000. Against the revised July it is 48,000.

BLS says monthly revisions come from reports that arrive after the first estimate and from recalculated seasonal factors. May and June were unchanged in this release.

JOLTS is a sample survey of about 21,000 business and government establishments across all industries, and construction is one slice of it. A job counts as open only if a specific position exists, the work could start within 30 days, and the employer is recruiting from outside the establishment. (Openings are a count on the last business day of the month, while hires and separations cover the whole month.) BLS revises five years of estimates each year with the January data, when it applies updated employment benchmarks and seasonal factors, so the 25-month history in the chart will change again early next year.

The construction series moves a lot from month to month. December 2024 came in at 135,000 and the following month at 232,000, and swings of 50,000 or more appear several times in the last two years. The 12-month average line in the chart is a steadier guide than any single month.

BLS | Construction Metrics

Construction job openings fell 16% to 251,000 in August after BLS cut July to 299,000

What moved

How to use this number

Revisions and caveats