Wall Street Journal (12/23/12) Conor Dougherty

With home prices rising in the second half of 2012, experts believe construction jobs could increase in the near term. The housing bust and the recession resulted in a loss of 2.2 million construction workers, and the sector added only 58,000 jobs between January 2011 and November 2012. However, economists and construction firms are optimistic, given that single-family building permits are on the rise and the average workweek for production and nonsupervisory construction workers rose to 39.4 hours last month, marking a six-year high and indicating that companies will have to hire more workers shortly. “The indications are that the market is starting to turn around and that will drive our hiring up—provided it’s sustained,” says Doug Bellamy, president of Escondido, CA-based Alta Drywall.