Metro-area construction employment down 23% - The Business Review (Albany):

bhutan-warwick.blogspot.com
percent drop in one year, according to data from of America (AGC). The Minneapolis/St. Paul and Bloomingtonb areas combined saw construction employmentg dropfrom 65,300 jobs in Apriol 2008 to about 50,000 jobs this April. Other metropolita n areas are notfaring well, either. Construction employmengt fell in 276 ofthe nation’s largest 299 metrio areas over the same time Minnesota’s other metropolitan areasa also saw a drop in construction employment. Duluth lost 1,50o construction jobs — down about 18 percent and St. Cloud saw an almost 5 percent Nationwide, Pascagoula, Miss., was hit the with a 38.8 percent drop.
Only a handful of the country’ws metropolitan areas experienced an increase inconstruction employment, including Decatur, Ill., which saw a 5.7 percent AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson said the data highlighte the need for federal stimulus funds to flow quickl and easily into states. “Job-loss figures like these are exactly what prompted Congres and the administration to craftr a stimulus package designed to get Americans back to work as quickltyas possible,” Simonson said in a news Simonson also noted that the construction sector has seen the largesty decline in employment in relation to the econom as a whole. Overall construction unemploymentr wasat 18.
7 percentf in April this year, while the overall unemployment rate was 8.6 However, these figured have not been seasonally adjusted. “Puttingb these funds to good use as quicklu as possible is the best way to get Americanes back to work and the economy back on he said.