Hours Worked, Overtime, and Time Use
Construction is prone to long hours, seasonal work, and nonstandard work arrangements. A unique characteristic of the industry is the boom-bust cycle which can impact daily work and arrangements based on the need for construction workers.
This interactive dashboard highlights data trends in hours worked, overtime, and time spent on various daily activities. The Year filter updates both the charts and bolded and underlined key findings.
Following the interactive dashboard, you will find more information on the data sources, definitions, chart notes, a downloadable data file, and recommended citation. This interactive data dashboard corresponds to a chapter in the upcoming PDF version of the Construction Chart Book-7th edition, which will be published this summer. Data will be updated annually as available. If you have questions or comments, please email [email protected].
About the Data
Sarah M. Flood, Liana C. Sayer, Daniel Backman, and Annie Chen. American Time Use Survey Data Extract Builder: Version 3.2 [dataset]. College Park, MD: University of Maryland and Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2021-2022. https://doi.org/10.18128/D060.V3.2.
Sarah Flood, Miriam King, Renae Rodgers, Steven Ruggles, J. Robert Warren, and Michael Westberry. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series, 2011-2021 Current Population Survey: Version 9.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, 2022. https://doi.org/10.18128/D030.V9.0.
- The data was weighted using the final basic weight and not composite weight for replicating U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS); thus, estimates presented are not directly comparable to estimates published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1985-2023 Table B-7. Average weekly hours and overtime of production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls by industry sector, seasonally adjusted. https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/ceseeb7a.htm.
Definitions
- Boom-bust cycle – Period of economic growth and then a slowdown that impacts the need and number of construction projects.
- Craftworker – All workers, except managerial, professional (i.e. architects, accountants, lawyers, etc.), administrative support workers. Also called blue-collar or production workers.
- Hours worked – The number of reported hours worked in the last week in CPS data and hours worked in the 24-hour period examined in ATUS data.
- Full–time – Reported working 35-40 hours a week.
- Part-time – Reported working less than 35 hours a week.
- Overtime – Reported working more than 40 hours a week.
- Worker class – Indicates if a worker was self-employed, worked in private industry, public sector, was in the armed forces, or other work arrangement. For more information see: https://cps.ipums.org/cps-action/variables/CLASSWKR#codes_section.
- Self-employed – Individuals who work for themselves or their own legal corporation.
- Wage-and-salary – Workers who receive wages, salaries, commissions, tips, or pay from their employer.