The most recent construction data released by the U.S. Department of Labor presents the classic “is the glass half full or half empty” scenario, as more states lost jobs than gained them between January 2011 and 2010, but some states enjoyed notable gains.
The Associated General Contractors (AGC), Washington, D.C., said Texas (+33,400 jobs, +5.9 percent); Michigan (+8,300 jobs, +6.8 percent); Pennsylvania (+7,100 jobs, 3.3 percent); and Tennessee (+4,400 jobs, 4.3 percent) were among the 14 states that had the highest increases in construction employment between Jan. 2011 and Jan. 2010..
Thirty-six states lost jobs between January 2010 and 2011. AGC reported that the largest percentage drop in construction employment for the year occurred in Nevada (-12.9 percent, -8,400 jobs), followed by Georgia (-12.5 percent, -19,100 jobs); Wisconsin (-8.2 percent, -8,000 jobs); and Kentucky (-8.2 percent, 5,700 jobs). Florida lost the most construction jobs over the past 12 months (-24,000 jobs, -6.7 percent). Other states experiencing large overall declines in construction employment included Georgia; North Carolina (-13,900 jobs, 7.7 percent); and New York (-12,500 jobs, -4.0 percent). Details
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Jim Lucy Blog
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Jim Lucy has been wandering through the electrical market for more than 30 years, most of the time as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling, Electrical Marketing newsletter and CEE News. During that time he and the editorial team for the publications have won numerous national awards for their coverage of the electrical business. He showed an early interest in electricity, when as a youth he had an idea for a hot dog cooker. Unfortunately, the first crude prototype malfunctioned and the arc nearly blew him out of his parents' basement. Before becoming an editor for Electrical Wholesaling magazine and Electrical Marketing, he earned a BA degree in journalism and a MA in communications from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ., which is formerly best known as the site of the 1967 summit meeting between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin, and now best known as the New Jersey state college that changed its name in 1992 to Rowan University because of a generous $100 million donation by N.J. zillionaire industrialist Henry Rowan. Jim is a Brooklyn-born Jersey Guy happily transplanted in the fertile plains of Kansas for the past 20 years.