Construction jobs fall along with building permits

The impact of a more than 20% drop in South Florida residential construction permits issued in 2022 from the 2021 total is showing up in a declining number of Miami-Dade construction jobs this year.

Miami-Dade’s construction job loss in April from April 2022 resulted in 2,500 fewer persons at work, a 4.8% job decline, according to figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Fort Lauderdale area had an even bigger loss, down 3,900 construction jobs in the 12 months, an 8% plunge, according to data released last week by the Associated General Contractors of America.

Miami-Dade’s percentage decline was seventh worst in the nation among the 358 metropolitan areas, according to the General Contractors’ data. Worst was Los Angeles, which shed 5,400 construction jobs in the period, a 4% decline.

Among causes of the local construction job loss was the decline in construction building permits issued in South Florida. Data released last week by the US Census Bureau showed a 20.9% drop in building permits issued in 2022, permits that would result in construction work this year.

The permits that were issued for South Florida in 2022 totaled 6,970 for single-family homes and 13,051 for units in multifamily buildings, a total of 20,021 residential units.

In April alone, 700 construction jobs disappeared in Miami-Dade, declining from 50,700 jobs in March to 50,000 in April, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

Construction jobs in South Florida – and Miami-Dade in particular – are heavily cyclical, and in the past 20 years they have tracked closely with multi-family residential building development.

They peaked in Miami-Dade at 56,600 jobs at the height of the last condo boom in September 2007, but as the end of the boom was followed by a steep decline, those jobs bottomed out at just 30,100 in January 2012. In the recent sizzling condo market, construction jobs again peaked at 55,000 last September before decreasing to April by 5,000 jobs.

Florida as a whole actually gained construction jobs in April as population exploded by 734,522 persons in the rest of the state excluding Miami-Dade from April 2020 to last July while it declined by 27,925 persons in Miami-Dade, census figures show. Florida in April had 604,300 construction jobs, up 1.4% from the prior April though down from a peak at 613,000 construction jobs in December.

While a population decline with fewer building permits helps to explain the decrease here in construction jobs, Associated General Contractors points toward the lack of available construction workers nationally.

“With the construction unemployment rate setting an all-time low for April of 4.1%,” Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist, said in a statement, “contractors in many areas weren’t able to find enough qualified workers.”

The Census Bureau reported Friday that total US construction activity for April was $1,908.4 billion, which was 1.2% above the revised March total of $1,885 billion. The March figure was itself a 0.3% gain.