The Data DIGest:

According to the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report, construction (particularly nonresidential), continued to hemorrhage jobs. Construction lost 15 percent of its September 2008 jobs in the last 12 months. September losses totaled 51,000 in nonresidential building, specialty trade, and heavy and civil engineering construction combined, nearly the monthly average loss of 54,000 over the past 12 months. Residential building and specialty trade contractors shed a combined 13,000 jobs in September, barely a third as many as the monthly average over the 12-month span.
One faintly positive sign was that architectural and engineering services employment, a harbinger of future demand for construction, rose for the first time in 15 months, albeit by only 500 jobs (0.04 percent). Average hourly earnings in construction tumbled 16 cents to $22.45 in September, bringing the 12-month change to 36 cents or 1.6 percent, compared to 2.5 percent for all private-sector production or nonsupervisory employees. The overall unemployment rate climbed to 9.5 percent in September, not seasonally adjusted (9.8 percent, seasonally adjusted) from 6.0 percent a year earlier. The unemployment rate in construction, 17.1 percent, (not seasonally adjusted), again topped every other industry and was up from 9.9 percent a year earlier.
The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) compiled a list of 337 areas, including divisions and subdivisions of the 34 largest metros, for which BLS provided construction employment figures (combined with mining and logging in metros where employment in these industries is small). Construction employment fell over the past 12 months in 324 of these locations, rose in eight and was unchanged in five. The largest 12-month percentage construction employment gains were in Columbus, Indiana, 14 percent (combined data); Anderson, Ind., 6 percent (combined); Tulsa (construction only); Longview, Wash. (combined) and Baton Rouge (construction only), 3 percent each. The worst construction job losses were in Reno-Sparks, Nevada, -35 percent (construction only); Duluth, Minnesota-Wisconsin, -33 percent (combined); Tucson, -31 percent (construction only); Wenatchee-East Wenatchee, Wash., -30 percent (combined); and Redding, California, -28 percent (combined).
Construction spending in August totaled $942 billion at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, up 0.8 percent from the downwardly revised July total of $935 billion (initially estimated as $958 billion), but 12 percent below the August 2008 level, the Census Bureau reported on Thursday. Private residential spending soared 4.7 percent for the month but was 27 percent lower than in August 2008. Of the three residential components, the largest