February is Career and Technical Education (CTE) month, and it comes at the perfect time to celebrate the students, teachers and industry partners who are growing the career readiness of America’s construction workforce. 

ABC contractor members Fluor, EMCOR Group, AECOM, Jacobs Engineering Group, Peter Kiewit Sons’, Schneider Electric and Siemens were featured on Fortune’s “The World’s Most Admired Companies” list. Almost 4,000 experts, including executives, analysts and directors, voted on the companies, which received high scores in social responsibility, long-term investment value, corporate assets, quality of products and services, global competitiveness, innovation, people management and quality of management.

On Feb. 5, 2018, ABC joined the Associated General Contractors, National Association of Home Builders and the Leading Builders of America in sending a letter to Republican and Democratic leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate to express support for broad, bipartisan reform to the U.S. immigration system and recommend policies that would help address the workforce needs of construction industry employers.  

The unemployment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows growth in both public and private construction spending, according to an analysis by ABC. Construction added 36,000 net new jobs in January, an impressive increase of 0.5 percent on a month-over-month basis.  

Nonresidential construction spending expanded 0.8 percent in December, totaling $720.4 billion on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to ABC's analysis of data released by the U.S. Census Bureau. This represents the fifth consecutive month during which the pace of nonresidential spending has increased. 

On Jan. 26, the National Labor Relations Board announced an extension for the public to submit responses related to its Request for Information on the 2014 “ambush” election final rule, also known as Representation-Case Procedures. The deadline for submitting information has been extended from Feb. 12 to March 19, 2018. 

The not seasonally adjusted national construction unemployment rate was 5.9 percent in December, down 1.5 percent from December 2016 and the lowest December rate on record, according to an analysis released by ABC of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Estimated construction unemployment rates were down in 46 states on a year-over-year basis, unchanged in one (Idaho) and up in three states (Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire).

President Trump delivered his first State of the Union Speech on Jan. 30, calling America “a nation of builders.” ABC responded to the key components of the president’s address that focused on rebuilding America’s infrastructure, developing an effective workforce in the United States, the success of tax reform, and the need to fix our broken immigration system while continuing to grow a strong economy with limitless opportunities for all Americans.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has completed its mailing of the 2017 EEO-1 survey notification letters, according to a Jan. 24 press release issued by the agency. The annual survey requires all private employers with 100 or more employees and federal government contractors or first-tier subcontractors with 50 or more employees and a contract/subcontract of $50,000 or more to file the EEO-1 report. 

The U.S. economy grew by 2.3 percent in 2017, while fixed investment increased at an annual rate of 7.9 percent, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) analysis of data released today by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.