The national construction unemployment rate (seasonally unadjusted) went from 8.6% in November to 11.4% in December, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics. The rate was still a year-over-year increase from 2012 when the construction unemployment rate was 13.5%. “Construction employment edged down in December (-16,000). However, in 2013, the industry added an average of 10,000 jobs per month. Employment in nonresidential specialty trade contractors declined by 13,000 in December, possibly reflecting unusually cold weather in parts of the country,” according to a news release Jan. 10 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.In the U.S. Southwest, the recent trend

On Jan. 14, Arizona State University made official that will invest $210 million to renovate and rebuild its aging Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. Courtesy Arizona State University Rendering of Sun Devil Stadium renovations. Courtesy Arizona State University Rendering of Arizona State University renovations. The proposed plan will completely renovate the facility while preserving Tillman Tunnel and retaining the stadium in its iconic setting between the Tempe/Hayden buttes. The football team will continue to use the stadium throughout the period of renovation which is anticipated to be complete in 2017.The demolition project has been awarded to Hunt Construction, according to

When it comes to the topic of construction jobs in Arizona, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that jobs have rebounded from the depths of the recession by nearly 20,000 jobs or so. The bad news, though, is that the 123,000 or so workers employed by the construction industry in November 2013 are about the same amount as worked in the industry in 1995, according to data released today by the Arizona Department of Administration.According to the data, total construction employment in January 2013 was 116,600 which included 76,100 in specialty trades. In November 2013,

Birgitta Foster has joined ACAI Associates Inc. as the director of facilities integration and will manage the firm's new Albuquerque office. She has served as the assisting director of the buildingSMART alliance for the past two years and is currently a representative for buildingSMART International. Related Links: Upload Your New Hires or Promotions to ENR Southwest's People Gallery ENR Southwest People Brock Grayson has joined Layton Construction in Phoenix as vice president of the Arizona business unit. Grayson spent 16 years at Ware Malcomb Architects and was architect-of-record for Layton's build-out of the Fender Musical Instruments headquarters in Scottsdale. He

Construction was among the industries that reported increased employment levels in September, according to the latest employment statistics from the Dept. of Labor — released nearly three weeks after originally scheduled thanks to the federal government shutdown. But due to the delay, regional reporting for most states and regions has not yet been compiled. The U.S. Department of Labor’s monthly employment report for September, released Oct. 22, found that overall, total non-farm payroll employment rose by 148,000 in September, and the unemployment rate was virtually unchanged at 7.2%.The entire Southwest region including Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico were eagerly awaiting

Bob Kain has been named director of health care for Balfour Beatty Construction, where he will lead market endeavors in Phoenix and Southern California. Kain comes to the company from HMC Architects, where he was the primary owner, president and CEO. He was principal-in-charge for several large replacement facilities including the $370-million Kaiser Permanente Replacement Hospital in Fontana, Calif. Related Links: Upload Your Firm's People Announcements to ENR Southwest's People Gallery View Past ENR Southwest People Articles Leary Jones also joined Balfour Beatty as senior director of safety, health and environmental for the Southwest. Jones previously served as Turner Construction's

Two upcoming hot tickets in Las Vegas both will feature the Harmon Hotel—once the planned showstopper of the huge CityCenter development, but now unfinished and unopened. Image: ENR The abandoned Harmon Hotel in Las Vegas, Nev. Related Links: Court Drama Over Harmon Hotel Defects to Continue into 2014 MGM Aims To Bulldoze Unfinished Harmon Tower in Vegas The $279-million hotel soon faces court-approved demolition and also is the subject of a construction-defect trial set for next February that pits co-owner MGM Resorts International against general contractor Tutor Perini Building Corp. Both events will be closely watched.Still unclear, however, is what

Saturation divers, working one at a time, are nearing the end of a repair project on a pumped-storage hydroelectric system at Horse Mesa Dam on the Salt River in central Arizona. The repair will reestablish 97 megawatts of peak-load generating capacity that was lost 13 months ago, when failure of a guide vane sent about 50 tons of concrete shooting down the penstock serving the turbines. Related Links: Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge Dedicated “It is our largest hydro-generation asset on the Salt River,” says Roger Baker, principal engineer for hydro-generation at the U. S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Salt River Project,

On Friday, August 23, Clark County District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez approved CityCenter's motion to raze the 26-story, $275 million Harmon Hotel tower following a fourth round of destructive testing. Officials will immediately start planning for the demolition, which could happen within a year, despite a pending February 2014 lawsuit filed by Tutor Perini Building Corp. over $191 million in disputed unpaid bills.Harmon Hotel was part of the $8.5-billion, 18-million-sq-ft CityCenter complex, which opened in Dec. 2009 on the Las Vegas Strip.In the past, Tutor Perini has blamed problems in the building on a faulty design. The firm has also fought

According to data recently released by the Associated General Contractors, Phoenix leads Southwest metropolitan areas in construction hiring, followed by Albuquerque and Las Vegas. The momentum created by the Phoenix metro area’s construction job growth pushed the state of Arizona to 9 percent construction-job growth from June 2012 to June 2013.Other states that also saw 9 percent growth year-over-year are Mississippi, Louisiana and Wyoming. Nevada and New Mexico both saw increases of 3 percent.Link to June 2013 AGC Construction Employment By Southwest State ranked by growth“Although construction activity remains extremely spotty, with strong residential activity offsetting lackluster private nonresidential investment