Moneybox: The Construction Workers Have Left the Building

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moneybox The Construction Workers Have Left the Building Why a sharp drop in the unemployment rate for builders isn't good news. By Annie Lowrey Posted Monday, Aug. 15, 2011, at 6:28 PM ET Since the beginning of the year, something extraordinary has happened in one of the sectors hardest hit by the recession: Unemployment has dropped by more than a third among construction workers. In January, the unemployment rate in construction was a whopping 22.5 percent. By July, it had fallen to 13.6 percent. Few other major employment sectors have seen such a dramatic change, let alone a positive one, in the same time period. Those statistics might seem astonishing given the stubbornly high unemployment rate and anemic pace of jobs growth in the last year or two. (What the White House--or, more to the point, America's jobless workers--wouldn't give to see the broader unemployment rate drop that sharply!) Alas, the statistics are somewhat misleading. There has been no real recovery in construction. The falling unemployment rate is a sign of a still-ailing industry, not a newly thriving one. To continue reading, click here. Annie Lowrey reports on economics and business for Slate. Previously, she worked as a staff writer for the Washington Independent and on the editorial staffs of Foreign Policy and The New Yorker. Her e-mail is annie.lowrey@slate.com. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate The Republican Businessman Who Wants All Candidates To Agree To Attend a Two-Day Business Seminar Ethan Allen Was the Founding Father of Vermont--and Kind of a Greedy Jerk Five Great Magazine Articles About Quarterbacks	Advertisement
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