Labour and wages ·
Economist warns New England contractors face a thin labor market
By Workvado / Litequo LLC · Published · Updated
Ken Simonson’s Oct. 23 analysis links recent state employment, wage and spending figures to a “low hire, low fire” pattern in the region.
Ken Simonson, chief economist of Associated General Contractors of America, published a New England construction outlook on Oct. 23 describing a labor market with subdued hiring and few layoffs. His analysis uses employment data through August and says the region’s construction workforce picture is uneven: nationally, nonresidential construction employment rose 2.8 percent over the year while residential construction employment fell 0.6 percent; many Northeast states were weaker than the national pattern. These are historical measures, not October payroll counts.
The regional figures differ by state and month. Simonson noted New Hampshire, Rhode Island and New Jersey among states with year-over-year construction employment declines through August. Massachusetts had added thousands of jobs between June 2025 and June 2026 but then lost positions from July to August. He describes the result as ‘low hire, low fire’: contractors are cautious about adding staff but reluctant to release workers who may be difficult to replace. The term is an interpretation of the data, not an official labor-market classification.
Pay is part of the retention pressure. The analysis reports that construction workers’ average hourly earnings nationally rose 5 percent over the year, faster than the private-sector average. Higher wages can make recruiting more expensive, but lower turnover can also protect production continuity on projects where replacing an experienced worker requires onboarding, site-specific orientation and safety training. For estimators, the implication is to avoid treating wage escalation as the only labor risk; crew availability and productivity can be equally important.
Immigration also appears in the outlook. Simonson cites estimates that foreign-born workers account for 35 percent of construction trade workers nationwide and a higher share in some specialty trades. That context matters because enforcement or policy changes can affect labor supply, but the commentary does not quantify how many workers a particular state or employer would lose. Project teams should use local workforce information and subcontractor commitments rather than convert a national share into a project headcount assumption.
The analysis also connects workforce pressures to spending and input costs. It cites year-over-year construction spending declines in residential and nonresidential segments, alongside a much faster rise in a nonresidential construction input-price index than consumer prices. Those indicators describe a difficult bid environment: project owners may be deferring work even while contractors face rising labor and materials costs. Because the spending figures refer to an earlier period, they should not be described as October results.
For contractors planning late-2026 and 2027 work, the practical response is scenario planning. Identify critical trades, build realistic wage assumptions into bids, confirm subcontractor staffing capacity before committing schedules, and avoid depending on a single recruitment channel. Firms can also track apprenticeships, retention and training needs; however, the Oct. 23 commentary does not provide a regional count of unfilled vacancies or predict a numerical labor shortfall.
Simonson’s article is useful as a dated synthesis of employment and cost data for New England, but its forecasts remain analysis. The observed figures end in August, and national data can conceal local differences in licensing, union coverage, project mix and travel patterns. Contractors should pair the outlook with current state and metro labor statistics and their own bid pipeline. The central signal is low churn alongside high replacement difficulty, which makes workforce continuity a schedule input as well as a human-resources issue.
- Analysis published
- October 23, 2026
- Employment reference period
- Year through August 2026
- Wage reference
- National construction average hourly earnings rose 5% over the year in analysis
Sources
- What’s in the Mix for the Rest of 2026 (and Beyond)?, High-Profile Monthly, by Ken Simonson, read October 27, 2026
- The Employment Situation — September 2026, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, read October 27, 2026
- Construction spending, U.S. Census Bureau, read October 27, 2026