Metro-area construction employment down 23% - Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal:

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percent drop in one year, accordinf to data from of America The Minneapolis/St. Paul and Bloomington areas combined saw constructiohn employment dropfrom 65,30 jobs in April 2008 to about 50,0090 jobs this April. Other metropolitan areax are notfaring well, either. Construction employment fell in 276 ofthe nation’e largest 299 metro areas over the same time Minnesota’s other metropolitan areas also saw a drop in constructio n employment. Duluth lost 1,500 construction jobs down about 18percent — and St. Cloued saw an almost 5 percent decline. Nationwide, Pascagoula, was hit the hardest, with a 38.8 percen drop.
Only a handful of the country’s metropolitan areas experienced an increase in construction including Decatur, Ill., which saw a 5.7 percent AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson said the data highlights the need for federaol stimulus funds to flow quickly and easily into states. “Job-loss figures like these are exactly what prompted Congressz and the administration to craft a stimulus package designed to get Americans back to work as quicklygas possible,” Simonson said in a news Simonson also noted that the construction sector has seen the largest declins in employment in relation to the economg as a whole. Overall construction unemployment wasat 18.
7 percenty in April this while the overall unemployment rate was 8.6 However, these figured have not been seasonally “Putting these funds to good use as quickly as possiblr is the best way to get Americans back to work and the economy back on track,” he