Construction job creation appears to be petering out.

Total construction employment in September was 6.67 million, adjusted for seasonal variations, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday, just barely up from 6.66 million in March.

The construction industry has essentially stopped adding jobs even as the rest of the economy has continued to generate jobs at a pace more than sufficient to keep the unemployment rate trending down.



The hiring slowdown has coincided with a leveling-off of construction spending. Confusingly, however, it has also transpired while construction firms are adding more jobs than ever. There has been an average of over 200,000 advertised construction job openings in the six months ending in July, according to the Bureau, the highest such mark on record.

Housing construction is not to blame. Housing starts were up through the summer, and employment has risen among workers who are building homes.

Instead, it has been firms working on civil engineering projects or on commercial buildings that have shed workers in recent months.

That could be reassuring news, given that housing is one of the sectors most important in business cycle fluctuations.

Falling employment, however, is a bit of a mystery for an industry in which firms have recently been reporting trouble finding trained workers and wages have been rising.