Dive summary:

• The unemployment rate for construction workers was 13.2%, which is the best number in the past five years – though a lower rate is always due, in part, to former construction workers giving up hope of returning to their trades and just not trying anymore.
• In the 12 months ending in April, Associated General Contractors said, federal data show 150,000 more workers in construction jobs than were employed a year earlier.
• In the year, residential building and specialty trade contractors had 38,700 more people working, and there were 70,100 more people working for nonresidential building and specialty trade contractors as well as heavy and civil engineering construction firms.

From the release:

"It is heartening to see that both nonresidential and residential segments of the construction industry added significant numbers of workers in the last 12 months, even though gains from March to April were limited to the residential side," said Ken Simonson, the association's chief economist ...