Your inside source for real estate, development and construction information serving the counties of Mecklenburg, Union & Iredell VOLUME 106 NUMBER 24 ■ MECKTIMES.COM
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TUESDAY, JULY 5, 2022 ■ $2.00
Half of Americans cry at least once while buying a home Page 2
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Providence Group Capital acquires five LoSo parcels in Charlotte Page 4
NOVAK: Parenting is above all other jobs, depending Page 5
ENNICO: Are you a Maturepreneur?
Construction employment climbs by 36,000 in May Rapidly rising hourly earnings enabled the construction industry to add 36,000 employees in May, but a record number of job openings going into the month suggests contractors want to hire even more workers, according to an analysis by the Associated General Contractors of America of new government data. Association officials said firms would have hired even more workers if they could find more people willing to work in the sector.
“It is encouraging that contractors were able to add workers in May, but they will need many more to meet the increasing demand for infrastructure and private nonresidential projects,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist. “Despite steeply rising pay for hourly workers, job openings in construction hit an all-time high at the end of April, while the industry’s low unemployment rate suggests experienced workers are scarce.”
Average earnings for production and nonsupervisory employees—mainly hourly craft workers in construction — rose by 6.3 percent from May 2021 to last month, the most since December 1982, Simonson pointed out. But average earnings in the overall private sector rose slightly faster, by 6.5 percent, making it hard for contractors to attract enough applicants to fill all openings. There were 494,000 construction-industry job
PLEASE SEE CONSTRUCTION JOBS ON PAGE 4
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Stocks sway on Wall Street, cool off after winning week Page 7
“Despite what the headlines may say, real estate is still seasonal.”
Joe Jesuel, HomeJab
Story, page 4
