Report: Las Vegas area lost 14,400 construction jobs

By Steve Green

Friday, June 5, 2009 | 12:56 p.m.

The boom-and-bust economy in Las Vegas has been particularly hard on the construction industry -- with little hope for a quick turnaround.

The Associated General Contractors issued a report this week showing construction employment fell in Las Vegas and 275 other metro areas from April 2008 to April 2009.

The Las Vegas statistics, not including thousands of jobs lost the past few months at the stalled Fontainebleau Resort, show construction employment here fell by 15.2 percent.

The area lost 14,400 construction jobs, leaving 80,100 people employed locally in the industry through April, the AGC said.

The AGC issued the numbers as it called on the federal government to speed up the deployment of stimulus dollars needed to help revive the economy.

"Job loss figures like these are exactly what prompted Congress and the administration to craft a stimulus package designed to get Americans back to work as quickly as possible," AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson said in a statement. "Putting these funds to good use as quickly as possible is the best way to get Americans back to work and the economy back on track."

Simonson noted that the construction sector has seen the largest decline in employment relative to the rest of the U.S. economy. For example, overall construction unemployment was at 18.7 percent in April while the overall unemployment rate was 8.6 percent, not seasonally adjusted. The overall rate in Las Vegas was 10.4 percent.

Construction workers account for 20 percent of all jobs lost in the past year, he said.

The AGC numbers are in line with statewide statistics compiled by the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation.

That agency last month said Nevada’s construction industry continued to struggle through commercial and residential market adjustments. Statewide construction employment in April declined by 1,200 jobs from March, and was down 22,600 over-the-year.

"Nevada’s construction woes are not unique to the state, though the build up and fall of the industry has been more severe than most," Bill Anderson, chief economist at the agency, said in a statement. "During the peak of the ‘housing boom,’ year-over-year employment growth neared 18 percent in Nevada. Compare that to the 5.2 percent employment growth in the nation as a whole over the same time period. At its height, the construction industry accounted for 11.2 percent of all jobs in the state, and only 5.7 percent for the nation. Through 2009, the ratio of construction jobs has fallen to 8.1 percent of all jobs in Nevada, a level similar to the early 1990s."

Anderson predicted that as CityCenter and other projects are completed, construction workers on those jobs for the most part won't be able to find new work here.

"Once released, workers will find it difficult to locate new employment opportunities," he concluded.