There were 26 states that added construction jobs in July, compared to 19 in June. Only six states added construction jobs over the past year, however. The unemployment rate in the construction sector for July was 17.3%, much higher than the overall economy (9.5%). There are more than 1.5 million unemployed construction workers in the United States.

"Encouraging as it is to see some modest signs of progress, it is increasingly unlikely we'll keep seeing these kinds of gains over the next few months," Ken Simonson, AGC's chief economist, said in a statement. "There is little to indicate that construction will be adding workers to a significant extent any time soon."

The largest year-over-year increase was in Kansas, where construction employment rose 6.9% (4,000 jobs), followed by New Hampshire (5.0%, 1,100 jobs), Oklahoma (2.8%, 1,900 jobs), West Virginia (2.4%, 800 jobs), Alaska (1.9%, 300 jobs), and Arkansas (1.5%, 800 jobs).

Simonson cautioned that the improved employment picture could be attributable to a bulge in federal recovery act-funded projects.

"There are few signs of life in privately funded construction, and state and local budget deficit projections are forcing further cuts in non-stimulus public projects," he said.

AGC officials urged Congress to act on long-stalled infrastructure bills that would build on momentum from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

"Continued neglect of our aging infrastructure will damage our economic competitiveness and plunge the construction industry into another cycle of layoffs and hardship," said Stephen Sandherr, the association's CEO.

Construction employment figures by state are available from AGC at tinyurl.com/AGC0710.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials is also pushing Congress to act this fall on a long-term federal surface transportation reauthorization bill. AASHTO will release the third in a series of policy reports Monday documenting the country's needs for additional federal transportation investment -- see expandingcapacity.transportation.org for copies of all the reports. AASHTO's "Are We There Yet?" reauthorization campaign is available at arewethereyet.transportation.org.