Employment rose 166,000 in October and 1.6 million over 12 months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.7%.
Total
compensation-wages and salaries and
benefits-for construction workers
rose 0.8% in the third quarter, seasonally adjusted, matching the increase for both
private industry and state and local government,
BLS reported on Wednesday. Over the past 12 months, compensation rose 3.8%
in construction, 3.1% in private industry overall, and 4.3% in state and local
government. Although data is not broken out for nonresidential workers,
presumably their pay rose more, as many residential construction workers
probably received no raises. Compensation of
private industry union workers, who are concentrated in depressed auto and
related manufacturing and trucking, rose 2%, vs. 3.2% for non-union workers.