The median hourly wage for workers in the residential construction industry rose 1.41% in 2014, while an additional 5.42% of the workforce has been added to the sector, according to this year’s National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates United States report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
A total of 101,290 residential construction laborers, or 15.79% of the entire construction industry, worked last year, compared to 96,080, or 16.1% in 2013. Home construction workers’ median hourly wage reached $14.43 in the past year, inching up from the $14.23 seen a year ago. Their annual wage in 2014 was $32,850 on average, compared to $32,340 back in 2013.
Residential construction workers have been among the lower-paid groups for quite a long time. In terms of hourly wages, residential construction workers were paid 15.56% below the national median last year, compared to a 15.65% deficit a year before, a slow-paced growth. Even their median hourly wage in 2008—the closest to the national level in the past decade—was 11.54% below the national median.
In 2014, the annual mean wage for residential building laborers was 30.45% lower than the national average, a deterioration from 2013’s negative 30.36%.
Market gains and low interest rates have in part contributed to the residential construction employment recovery in recent years. Last year’s employment increase marked the fourth year in a row of gains, bouncing back from the low point of 82,850 in 2010.
Ever since 2008, residential construction employment has dramatically declined, with the largest drop occurring between 2008 and 2009, when the labor force shrank by 21.06%. Back in 2006, a total of 133,040 people worked as construction laborers in the residential building sector, the peak in the past 10 years.
