Residential construction employment continued to soften in recent months, reflecting elevated interest rates, ongoing affordability challenges, and slower home building activity. Over the last 12 months, residential construction employment has shed a net of 48,800 jobs, marking the fifteenth consecutive annual decline and the longest stretch of annual losses since the Great Recession. Despite these nationwide job losses, residential construction remains a significant source of local employment in many markets.
NAHB analysis of county-level data shows that the industry’s employment footprint is particularly large in rural and smaller-market counties, where home building accounts for a greater share of total employment than it does nationally.
The Concentration of Residential Construction Employment
To better understand the local concentration of residential construction employment, this analysis uses location quotients (LQ), published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). An LQ compares an industry’s share of local employment with its share nationally. In the context of residential construction, an LQ greater than 1.0 indicates that home building accounts for a larger share of the local economy than it does nationally.
Using December 2025 BLS data, county-level estimates reveal substantial geographic variation in residential construction employment across the United States.
Counties with an LQ below 1.0 had a smaller residential construction employment share than the national share. These counties were concentrated in the South and Great Plains. Louisiana had the largest share of counties below the national share, at 97.1%, followed by Mississippi (92.3%), Oklahoma (87.1%), Alabama (86.8%), and Kansas (82.6%).
Counties with an LQ above 1.0, by contrast, were more concentrated in the West. Hawaii and Delaware each had all their counties above the national share, followed by Oregon (92.6%), Washington (91.3%), Utah (89.5%), Alaska and Vermont (both at 87.5%), Idaho (77.8%), Wyoming (76.9%), and California (75.6%). Overall, nearly three-quarters (74.6%) of counties in Western states had LQ values above 1.0. Average LQ values reached as high as 2.94 in Wyoming and 2.88 in Utah, underscoring the outsized role residential construction plays in many western economies.
Counties with an LQ equal to 1.0 were rare, representing only six counties, or approximately 0.4% of the sample. These counties include Fresno County, California; Lawrence County, Ohio; Isabella County, Michigan; Brown County, South Dakota; and Milam and Polk Counties, Texas. In these counties, local residential construction employment concentration precisely mirrored the national share.
Residential Construction Concentration by HBGI Category
The geographic patterns become even clearer when counties are grouped by NAHB’s Home Building Geography Index (HBGI). Residential construction generally plays a larger role in rural and suburban markets, while large metro core counties show relatively lower employment concentration because their economies are more diversified and less dependent on home building activity.
Among the seven HBGI categories, non-metro/micro counties recorded the highest concentration of residential construction employment, with an average LQ of 1.48. Of the 286 counties in this category, 139 counties, or 48.6%, had residential construction employment shares above the national share. These higher-concentration counties showed an exceptionally strong average LQ of 2.40.
Suburban counties also posted relatively high concentrations of residential construction employment. Large metro outlying counties ranked first in the share of counties exceeding the national share, with 57.8% of counties posting an LQ above 1.0 and an overall average LQ of 1.30. Large metro suburban counties followed closely, with an average LQ of 1.19 and 56.8% of counties above the national share.
By comparison, large metro core counties recorded the lowest residential construction employment concentration, with an average LQ of just 0.81. Only 33.9% of counties in this category exceeded the national share, and the highest observed LQ was 2.01, with no counties reaching an LQ of 4.0. Small metro core counties showed a similarly modest concentration, with an average LQ of 0.98 and only 36.0% of counties above the national share.
Overall, these findings highlight the uneven geography of residential construction employment. While large metropolitan cores have broader and more diversified labor markets, rural communities and outlying suburban counties remain more reliant on home building as a source of local jobs.