Construction workforce by trade

Read construction workforce data by trade

Use employee wages to plan a hiring conversation, payroll jobs to compare industries, and business counts to research potential customers. Choose one measure before comparing trades or places. The CSV keeps each record’s scope and period beside its figures.

The occupation rows compare employee pay across all industries in the United States and North Carolina. Separate national rows isolate workers employed by selected construction industries. State industry-specific estimates were unavailable, so those cells stay blank.

BLS wages describe employees. They do not include a sub’s overhead, materials, profit, or every cost covered by a bid. Compare bids using the actual scope.

Employer establishments have paid employees; nonemployer businesses do not. The records here use different years. Keep those counts separate, and do not add industry totals to the occupations or subindustries already included within them.

For a local question, use Triangle construction workforce. Confirm crew size, capacity, and dates with the company you plan to hire.

Key findings from the recorded data

• September 2026 preliminary, seasonally adjusted CES payrolls record 922,700 jobs in residential building construction and 2,340,300 in residential specialty trade contractors.
• May 2025 OEWS records 204,290 carpenter jobs employed within residential building construction, with median employee pay of $29.13 per hour.
• Across all industries in May 2025, carpenter median hourly pay is $29.12 nationally and $23.61 in North Carolina. These are separate rows from the residential-industry estimate.
• Residential building construction has 212,178 US employer establishments and 8,063 NC employer establishments in 2023 CBP. The separate 2024 NES rows record 897,780 US and 29,427 NC nonemployer businesses. Do not sum different years into one total.
• The CSV contains 156 records and 26 columns. Its ten numeric measure columns contain 1,051 blanks, including inapplicable, withheld, absent, and unverified values.

For a different view of market activity, compare residential permits by metro. Authorized housing units and recorded jobs answer different questions.

How to use the table

Select a record family first: OEWS for occupation employment and pay, CES for payroll jobs, CBP for employer establishments, or NES for nonemployer businesses. Then match the occupation or industry code, scope, geography, reference period, and adjustment basis.

Use the cross-industry occupation records for US/NC wage comparisons. Keep occupation codes and industry codes as text. Do not add industry totals to occupation rows or parent industries to their children. A blank is not zero; the row notes identify why a measure is absent.

Method and caveats

The research retrieved official BLS tables and series plus Census bulk archives on October 14, 2026. OEWS uses May 2025. CBP uses 2023. NES uses 2024. CES uses September 2026 for residential aggregates and August 2026 for the detailed returned series. CES figures are preliminary.

CES thousands were converted to jobs by multiplying by 1,000. Ten CES rows in the CSV are seasonally adjusted. The residential building-equipment row is unadjusted. Comparisons must retain that distinction.

OEWS excludes self-employed workers. The selected occupation list is not an exhaustive residential workforce total. CBP employment retains source disclosure-noise flags. The NC industry-specific OEWS workbook returned an access error, and no values were inferred. Published wage medians are preserved rather than estimated from another measure.

Where Cercha fits

Use the data to frame your search, then use Cercha’s trade and location filters to find people to contact. Portfolios and endorsements help you start a work conversation. Confirm capacity, rates, and dates directly through Messages. A national employment total does not establish any member’s availability. For the Raleigh-Durham Triangle beta, ask about the beta.