Construction Quits Hit a 25-Month High: What It Means for Jobs

Two big labor reports landed this week, and read together they say something every property and construction worker should hear: if you can build, maintain or run a building, you have more leverage right now than you've had in years.

On Tuesday, November 3, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for September. On Wednesday, November 4, ADP published its October private payrolls report. And on that same Tuesday, Ontario's builders put out numbers showing a sharp jump in new home sales north of the border. Here's what's in them, and what I'd do with it.

The headline: people are quitting, and employers are hiring

According to the BLS JOLTS table for September 2026, construction had 298,000 open jobs on the last business day of September, up from 262,000 in August and 206,000 a year earlier. That's a 44.7% jump year over year, as Construction Dive reported on November 4.

Hires rose to 356,000 from 307,000. But the eye-catching number is quits. ConstructionMetrics' breakdown of the BLS data puts construction quits at 198,000 in September, up 46,000 in a month and the highest in the 25 months it tracks. The quits rate jumped from 1.8% to 2.4%.

"Nearly 200,000 construction workers quit their jobs in September," Anirban Basu, chief economist at Associated Builders and Contractors, told ENR. "That's the most in any month since the first half of 2023 and a strong indication that the industry's labor supply is once again tightening."

Meanwhile layoffs are scarce. Basu noted the construction layoff rate "remains lower than in any month on record prior to 2020", and layoffs are down 56,000 year over year. Contractors are clinging to the people they've got.

People don't usually quit in a weak market. They quit when they've got somewhere better to go. That's the signal I'd pay attention to.

Pay is following the demand

ADP's October National Employment Report, out November 4, showed private employers added 86,000 jobs. Construction added 13,000, the only goods-producing sector to grow (mining lost 8,000, manufacturing lost 1,000). Median base pay for construction workers was up 4.0% year over year, ahead of the 3.2% across all private-sector workers.

The bigger story in ADP's numbers is job-changers. Workers who switched employers saw base pay rise 4.8% and gross pay jump 7.6%. ADP chief economist Nela Richardson said job-changers "were lured by a combination of bonuses, overtime, and more hours in addition to higher base pay," and that earnings growth for these workers hit its fastest pace since March 2024. CNBC also flagged that BLS figures out Tuesday showed overall quits at their highest since March 2025.

So the pattern is clear: movement pays.

Where the demand is coming from

This isn't a broad-based construction boom. Macrina Wilkins of the Associated General Contractors of America told Construction Dive the jump in openings "comes against a backdrop of strong demand for data centers, power projects and select other types of nonresidential construction, even as activity in other sectors remains weak."

That matches what we wrote last week about data centers deciding where US construction jobs go. The heat is in mission-critical commercial work: electrical, mechanical, controls, commissioning and the project managers and estimators who keep those jobs on budget. Wilkins also pointed out the risks to retention, including workers leaving for other sectors and the effect of immigration enforcement on the workforce.

Real estate itself is cooler

Here's the honest counterpoint. The same JOLTS release shows openings in real estate and rental and leasing at 75,000 in September. That's up from 52,000 in August but well down from 133,000 a year earlier, and hires slipped to 52,000. Transaction-side roles are still feeling high borrowing costs. We covered the entry-level side of that last week in Real Estate's Entry-Level Squeeze.

My read: the "build and operate" half of property is hiring hard, while the "buy and sell" half is picky. If you're flexible about which half you work in, that's an opportunity.

Canada: tax relief is keeping crews busy in Ontario

North of the border, the Building Industry and Land Development Association and the Ontario Home Builders' Association reported on November 3 that Ontario new home sales hit 7,914 in Q3 2026, up 61% from 4,915 a year earlier. They credit the enhanced provincial-federal HST rebate that began on April 1, 2026.

From April to September, Ontario recorded about 16,490 new home sales, up 93%, and the groups estimate the program protected 27,800 construction jobs in its first six months. As OHBA CEO Scott Andison put it, "A sale today helps make construction possible tomorrow." Those sales turn into site work, trades and site supervision roles over the next year or two, which is good news for Ontario's residential workforce.

What I'd do with this

• If you're in construction and underpaid, test the market. The data says job-changers are getting paid. Get two offers before you ask your current boss for more. Know your number.
• If you're in a quiet brokerage or leasing seat, look sideways. Construction project coordination, estimating and building operations all value people who understand tenants, budgets and deadlines. Your skills transfer more than you think.
• If you hire, fix retention before recruitment. Compare your quit rate with the industry's 2.4%. If yours is higher, check your pay against what competitors are posting, and look at overtime, schedules and career paths before you spend more on job ads.
• Use AI to move faster, not to replace judgment. Tools like Grok Bot, Claude or ChatGPT can help you tailor a résumé to a data center or mission-critical job ad in minutes, or turn site notes into a clean daily report. The certifications and hands-on skills are still on you.

One caution: September JOLTS numbers are preliminary, and BLS will revise them on December 1. Construction openings also swing a lot month to month. Still, the direction is hard to ignore. The official October jobs report is due Friday, November 6, and economists polled by Dow Jones expect about 59,000 new jobs.

I'm optimistic about this one. A tight market for skilled people in the built environment means better pay, better training and more ways to move up. If you've been thinking about your next move, now is a good time.

Ready to see who's hiring? Browse the latest property and construction jobs across the US and Canada.