Housing Starts Not Keeping Up with Demand Residential Construction Workers Annual Growth
January 3,
2020 by Laurie Northington in General 
Although the U.S. now has a healthy economy, incomes are on the rise, and growth in household formations has finally started to normalize, the housing industry cannot keep up.
This is the final factoid in a series of five factoids detailing slow-to-grow housing starts, low inventories, and rising mortgages and rents.
The rebound of residential construction continues to be slow well past the recession recovery.
Labor shortages and the rising cost of land and materials has led to housing being built primarily for the higher end of the market. At a time when Millennials are fully entering their home buying years, many are being locked out – not boding well for the furniture industry.
Numerous factors have converged to create the housing shortage, one of which is lack of construction labor. The number of residential construction workers fell 21.7% in 2009 and did not begin showing positive growth (2.8 %) until 2012. While growth in construction labor has not been robust, there has been consistent increases each year since 2012 – growing an average of 5% each year from 2012 to 2019 May YTD.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics *Seasonally adjusted at annual rates