The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released the preliminary employment numbers for the month of October. In the construction field they are reporting an overall decrease in employment for the Southwest region. The numbers are showing that New Mexico, and Nevada both experienced downturns in their job growth between September and October, while Arizona saw a slight increase within the same time frame. Year-over-year, Arizona has fewer employed construction workers than in October 2013, while both New Mexico and Nevada have more.

The reported numbers from Arizona are 118,400 employed construction laborers in October 2014, a slight rise from the 116,300 that was reported in September. However that slight monthly increase may be overshadowed by the slight decrease on the yearly side of things considering at the end of October of last year there were 121,500 employed construction workers in the state.

In Nevada the reported number of construction employees is 62,000, which is a slight decline from last month’s 64,300. Last October, the state employed 59,900, an increase of more than  2,000.

As for New Mexico, the BLS is reporting that there were 43,000 employed construction workers in the month of October which is up ever so slightly from 42,400 in September. As well as slight increase over the October 2013 number which was also 42,400.

While the industry is still regaining momentum and strength it is important to recognize the small increases in employment and understand that while the industries growth may be slow, it is still constant. If last month’s report by the Arizona State University W.P. Carey School of Business report is accurate, the construction industry should continue to see growth going into a next year, with a possible boom in mid-2015.

At the national level, 34 states and The District of Columbia saw decreases in their unemployment rates from the month of September. Five states saw increases, and 11 states didn’t see a large enough change to record it at all, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics. As if that wasn’t enough to show a clear upturn however 42 states and D.C. saw their unemployment rates decrease from last year, and only five states saw an increase. The remaining three saw no change at all. Overall the national jobless rate was cut down to 5.8% from September, which was 1.4 percentage points lower than October of last year.

The biggest increase over-the month in employment was seen by California with an increase of 41,500, Texas with an increase of 35,200, and Florida with an increase of 34,400. While the largest decreases happened in Nevada with a decrease of 7,300, New York with a decrease of 5,600 and New Jersey who saw a decrease of 4,500 jobs.