Projections by the Idaho Department of Labor indicate construction employment will grow 44 percent from 2012 to 2022, the fourth largest projected growth of any industry in Idaho and 28 percentage points above the projected growth for all industries. During that time, construction is expected to add 3,000 jobs and employ 10,000 people by 2022.
Through the early 2000s, construction was booming throughout the United States. As real estate became the golden investment with an A+ rating and home mortgages available at an all-time high, construction crews could not build houses fast enough. With some hard work and a little bit of luck, a young person straight out of high school could quickly make the kind of money typically associated with a four-year degree. As a result, laborers flooded to the market.
From 2000 to 2007, Idaho employment in the industry exploded, jumping 65 percent to dramatically outpace Idaho’s total employment growth of 19 percent. As banks continued to hand out mortgages to people who could not afford them, the housing market became saturated with available homes and the housing boom quickly turned into a bubble that popped as the first foreclosures hit the market toward the end of 2007, sending the economy into the deepest and longest recession the nation had seen since the Great Depression.
When real estate soured and the housing market dried up, construction jobs dried up with it.
