• U.S. Labor Department number for June showed construction unemployment had dropped from 14.2% in May to 12.8% in June, but specialty trades accounted for a lot of the improvement.
• There are now 1.08 million unemployed construction workers rather than the 1.32 million a year ago, but part of the reason is that 320,000 workers have given up on finding jobs in their industry.
• The number of nonresidential building construction jobs was down from May but still ahead of 2011. Heavy and civil engineering construction and residential building job totals were both down for the period.

From the article:

With the addition of 2,000 jobs last month, the nation’s construction industry unemployment rate fell to 12.8% in June, down from 14.2% in May, according to the July 6 employment report by the U.S. Labor Department. One year ago, the construction unemployment rate was 15.6%.