Construction employment inched up by 8,000 jobs to a 15-month high in July but remained far below the peak set in early 2006, according to an analysis of new federal employment data released recently by the Associated General Contractors of America.

协会官员说，对公共部门建设活动的严峻前景可能会阻碍扩大私营部门的建设。他们敦促立法者在没有不必要的条件的情况下通过足够的长期资金来为公共项目提供足够的资金。新利18备用网址

印度河try unemployment rate fell from 17.3% a year earlier to 13.6% in July 2011, and the number of unemployed people who previously worked in construction shrank by nearly 400,000, said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist. However, Simonson noted that the July 2011 employment total of 5.53 million was only 32,000 higher than in July 2010 and was almost 2.2 million, or 28%, below the record level of April 2006.

“It is encouraging that the construction industry has added 54,000 jobs—or 1%—since hitting bottom last January,” Simonson said. “However, unemployed workers are leaving the industry at seven times the rate they are finding jobs in it, which suggests future expansion will be hard to achieve.”

The construction economist noted that employment in heavy and civil engineering construction—the segment that had previously added jobs as a result of federal funding for stimulus, military base realignment and Gulf Coast hurricane protection projects—shrank for the third month in a row, by 400 jobs, although the July 2011 total was 21,000 jobs, or 2.5%, higher than a year earlier.

Residential building and specialty trade employment dropped a combined 1,600 jobs in July and 11,700 jobs, or 0.6%, over the past 12 months. Nonresidential building and specialty trade contractors added a combined 10,200 jobs for the month and 22,400 jobs, or 0.9%, over 12 months.

“The shift in employment from heavy projects such as highways, military bases and levees to factories, power projects and hospitals will continue as government spending shrinks and the private sector gradually expands,” Simonson predicted. “But overall job creation will remain sluggish at best unless single-family homebuilding also revives.”

Association officials said that it is essential that public officials at all levels of government avoid shutdowns such as those that recently crippled public construction in Minnesota and airport projects nationwide. The construction association also reiterated its call to streamline approvals of public works.

该协会首席执行官斯蒂芬·E·桑德尔（Stephen E. Sandherr）表示：“国会和政府必须避免重复我们刚刚在机场建设项目中经历的不必要，有害的关闭。”新利18备用网址联邦地面运输计划。“我们的经济需要的最后一件事是，更多的自我伤害，这会使成千上万的不必要的失业。”