The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) are a well recognized organization that helps contractors in a variety of ways from risk management services to working on behalf of contractors to enact legislative change. At Schinnerer, staying knowledgeable of the current status of contractors includes knowing recent information released by the AGC.  

 

In their Jan. 8 news release, the AGC reported that the construction industry lost 53,000 jobs in December alone. For the year, the unemployment rate climbed to 22.7%.

 

Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist, noted that the new federal employment figures as the following: over 2 million construction workers are currently unemployed and 934,000 workers lost jobs during the past 12 months alone.

 

Unfortunately, Simonson indicated the falling demand for non residential construction is driving the job lost. It appears that 34,900 non residential jobs were lost in December.

 

The association is asking Congress to reconsider provisions in the Senate-passed health care legislation to exclude small construction firms from the new costly provisions. The hope would be to help firms that cannot take on the additional costs. 

 

For more information on this topic or future news releases from the AGC you can visit their website directly.