Construction Unemployment Surges to 18.7 Percent

While the extension of the home buyers' tax credit and expansion of carryback of net operation losses will provide some help for the 1.6 million construction workers who lost their jobs since December 2007, AGC today called for additional measures to stimulate construction demand as new federal figures showed another 62,000 construction workers lost their jobs in October. "The nation's economic troubles are forcing construction workers to shoulder a withering burden," said Stephen E. Sandherr, AGC's CEO. Helpful as the stimulus has been in saving some construction jobs, it is going to take more work to halt the devastating job losses that are wiping out millions of construction workers' families." AGC was quoted in a November 6 Reuters article on construction job loss, as well as an ENR article. For more information, contact Brian Turmail at (703) 837-5310 or turmailb@agc.org.