Dive summary:

• The nation had 28,000 more construction jobs to be filled last month, but the unemployment rate in the industry rose anyway, coming in at 16.1% in U.S. Department of Labor calculations.
• Tempering the disappointment about the increase from December's 13.5% was the fact that the rate stood a 17.3% in January 2011.
• Year over year, nonresidential construction had 1% more jobs last month than had been available the year before, and the residential sector had 0.4% more jobs.

From the article:

"... there are at least two reasons to question whether this improved performance is indicative of a broadening construction industry recovery or an example of the statistics being impacted by temporary phenomena." ...