The stagnation and declines that have affected the\u00a0nation\u2019s\u00a0construction industry since January may be starting to rear their head in the Tri-Cities.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to the latest analysis of construction workforce data by the Association of General Contractors of America (AGC), the Tri-Cities had\u00a011,600 construction jobs in June, 100 fewer\u00a0than it did a year prior.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s\u00a0a much smaller decline than many other parts of the state but AGC officials said\u00a0the ongoing issues\u00a0regarding\u00a0tariff and trade uncertainty, paired\u00a0with high interest rates, are putting builders in a holding pattern or\u00a0leading them\u00a0to cancel\u00a0projects entirely.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe more uncertainty there is, the less likely developers are going to invest in significant new construction projects,\u201d said Jeffrey D. Shoaf, the association\u2019s CEO, in a statement.\u00a0\u201cThe more this administration can do to provide economic certainty, the more likely demand for construction will rebound.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Only 180 of the 360 metro areas for which the government\u00a0discloses\u00a0construction employment data added construction jobs in the\u00a0latest\u00a012\u00a0months\u00a0as of June, AGC officials said.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a035 fewer metros than a year ago.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Construction spending totaled\u00a0$2.14 trillion\u00a0at a seasonally adjusted annual rate in June.\u00a0That\u2019s\u00a00.4%\u00a0below the May rate and 2.9%\u00a0lower than the June 2024 level.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Until recently, the Tri-Cities had seen its construction labor pool grow year over year. The recent decline may result from projects being completed and new ones not being started.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs more structures that broke ground in past years reach completion, it is likely that industry employment growth will taper off even more,\u201d said Ken Simonson, AGC\u2019s chief economist, in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The stagnation and declines that have affected the\u00a0nation\u2019s\u00a0construction industry since January may be starting to rear their head…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[64,30075,63,99,180],"class_list":{"0":"post-42094","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-august-2025","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-jobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}