April Construction Employment Down 5%

The construction trades employed 7.275 million workers in April, from the same month in 2007, according to the most recent figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Residential construction employment dipped 10.8% for the month to 860,600 workers, while residential specialty trade employment fell 8.7% year-over-year to 2,116,400 workers.
The construction unemployment rate in April increased to 11.1% from 8.6% during the same month last year.
Weekly earnings for construction workers in April averaged $822.68, down 0.3% from March; hourly wages averaged $21.48 in April, up 0.2% from the previous month. Those figures were about 4% over the figures for April, 2007.