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2022 Economic Census / NAICS 23

Construction

The four largest firms in Construction accounted for 2.6% of the industry's 2022 sales, value of shipments, or revenue, and its concentration (HHI 4) ranks 17 of 17 sectors in the Economic Census. What is HHI?

National employer-firm concentration for this sector, measured from sales, value of shipments, or revenue. Census categories are statistical groupings, not necessarily antitrust markets.

SectorConstructionLower quartile

Revenue-based HHI

3.9

23
03,500
Same-level median 236th percentile

National rank

#17

of 17 published

Sector rank

N/A

of 26 published

Largest 4 firms

2.6%

Share of industry revenue

Revenue

$2.9T

Sales, shipments, or revenue

Employer firms

785.9K

785,917

Employment

7.5M

7,485,385

Four source-bounded systems

Sector evidence passport

Open sector atlas

The passport juxtaposes four source-bounded sector signals for navigation. Each cell retains its own period, denominator, source, and rank universe; the cells are not combined into a sector score, merger rate, legal market, causal estimate, or assessment of competitive harm.

  • GeographyUnited StatesNational firm totals
  • UniverseEmployer firmsFirms with payroll
  • MeasurementRevenue concentrationSales, shipments, or revenue
  • Permitted useScreening onlyNot a legal market definition

Longitudinal sector pulse

How typical detailed industries changed inside Construction

Compare six strict-match medians, their publication coverage, and each sector's position among 17 economy-wide rows.

NAICS 23

Median HHI-point change across strict six-digit matches

+1.6 pts#9 highest change of 17 sectors

Economy median

+1.6 ptsAcross sector medians
2017 paired median
13.3
2022 paired median
19.4
Published pairs
24 of 31
Direction mix
15 up / 9 down

Interpretation

The typical published detailed-industry HHI moved +1.6 pts. This distribution statistic is separate from the official broad-sector HHI row.

Classification boundary: 0 changed and 0 new detailed rows remain outside strict deltas.

Sector rows summarize strict six-digit NAICS matches. Their medians are not sector HHI values, legal antitrust markets, liability findings, or causal estimates. Vintage medians and the median of row-level changes are distinct distribution statistics and need not reconcile. Publication coverage varies by metric, and revenue changes are nominal.

Census formation and sector context

Monthly formation signals beside annual sector structure

60 monthly observations for the exact NAICS 23 broad-sector contract.
Direct broad-sector join
Business Applications
48,972
Jul 2026 monthly count
Application annual change
+15.2%
Same month one year earlier
U.S. application share
8.5%
Share of national applications
High-propensity mix
49.4%
24,175 applications
Projected formations
3,328
Modeled four-quarter source projection
Establishment entry rate
13.0%
2023 annual BDS rate

Monthly source trajectory

Applications and high-propensity applications

Aug 2021 to Jul 2026
Business ApplicationsHigh-Propensity Business Applications
Sixty-month business application trajectory for ConstructionBusiness Applications and the high-propensity subset share one count axis. The chapter describes the selected broad sector.100K75K50K25K0Aug 2021Nov 2022Feb 2024May 2025Jul 2026
552,950 applications / latest 12 months278,572 high-propensity / latest 12 months

Source clocks

Four releases, three measurement systems

Business Formation Statistics
2026-07
monthly applications and projected formations
Business Dynamics Statistics
2023
annual employer-establishment flows
Economic Census structure
2022
median across detailed-industry HHI rows
Strict concentration history
2017-2022
same-code and same-label detailed pairs
Exact broad-sector boundary

NAICS 23 is the exact broad-sector contract used by this chapter. This atlas joins only exact broad-sector NAICS contracts across three separate Census systems: monthly Business Formation Statistics, annual Business Dynamics Statistics, and Economic Census industry structure. The release clocks, populations, denominators, and measures remain distinct. Positions are descriptive context, not composite competition scores, causal estimates, legal antitrust markets, or evidence that applications, entry, concentration, and competitive effects are interchangeable.

BLS labor and payroll context

Monthly labor demand beside payroll and earnings

Two BLS releases mapped through the sole declared NAICS 23 sector context.
Single-sector crosswalk
Job openings
3.5%
Jun 2026 JOLTS rate
Hires
3.9%
Jun 2026 JOLTS rate
Quits
1.7%
Jun 2026 JOLTS rate
Layoffs + discharges
2.0%
Jun 2026 JOLTS rate
All employees
8.3M
8,343 thousand payroll jobs
Weekly hours
39.5
+0.5 hrs from year earlier
Hourly earnings
$41.46
+4.4% from year earlier

JOLTS worker flows

Openings and quits on native rate scales

Jul 2021 to Jun 2026
Job openings rateQuits rate
Sixty-month JOLTS openings and quits ratesJob openings and quits rates for the mapped Construction source group. The measures keep their published denominators and are not a labor-market power score.6.0%4.5%3.0%1.5%0.0%Jul 2021Oct 2022Jan 2024Apr 2025Jun 2026
+0.9 pp openings / year earlier-0.1 pp quits / year earlier

CES payroll context

Payroll jobs and nominal earnings, indexed

Aug 2021 = 100
Payroll jobsHourly earnings
Sixty-month CES payroll jobs and hourly earnings indexesPayroll jobs and nominal average hourly earnings for the mapped Construction source group, each independently indexed to 100 in the first displayed month. Native levels remain in the readouts.13012111310495Aug 2021Nov 2022Feb 2024May 2025Jul 2026
+1.0% payroll jobs / year earlier+4.4% nominal earnings / year earlier

Declared classification bridge

One profile, two source-owned industry groups

Selected Census parent
NAICS 23
Construction
JOLTS group
230000
Construction
CES supersector
20
Construction
Mapped Census sectors
1
23

Independent release clocks

Two monthly systems, no merged series

JOLTS worker flows
2026-06
60 displayed months · latest preliminary
CES payroll context
2026-07
60 displayed months · latest preliminary
Single-sector bridge boundary

NAICS 23 is the sole declared Census-sector context for both the Construction JOLTS group and the Construction CES supersector, but the Census and BLS classification contracts remain distinct. JOLTS industry rates describe national labor demand and worker-flow activity in broad BLS industry groups. They do not measure employer concentration, monopsony power, wages, bargaining power, job quality, local labor-market conditions, worker substitutability, a legal labor market, or the competitive cause of a change. The job openings rate uses employment plus openings as its denominator. Hires, quits, and layoffs and discharges use employment. Rates may be compared across published industry groups within the same measure, but different measures must not be added together or treated as a common flow balance. CES employment, hours, and earnings describe national payroll jobs and establishment averages in broad private-industry groups. They do not measure unique workers, vacancies, employer concentration, monopsony power, bargaining power, job quality, a local or occupational labor market, a legal antitrust market, or the competitive cause of a change. All-employee hourly earnings are current-dollar averages and are not adjusted for inflation. Changes can reflect shifts in industry and worker composition. Employment is reported in thousands of payroll jobs, so multiple jobholders may be counted more than once. Compare industries only within the same published measure; do not add or ratio the three measures into a common score. The two releases remain separate and are not combined into a labor-market, monopsony, competition, welfare, or causal score.

BEA industry output context

Construction in the U.S. value-added map

Exact broad-sector bridge from Census NAICS 23 to BEA line 11.
Exact sector context
GDP share
4.4%
2025 current-dollar composition
Real growth
+1.9%
2026-Q1 annualized BEA convention
Growth contribution
+0.08 pp
2026-Q1 contribution to real GDP growth
Real quantity index
105.8
2026-Q1 / 2017=100
Current value added
$1.36T
2026-Q1 seasonally adjusted annual rate

Annual composition trajectory

Share of current-dollar GDP

1997-2025
Construction annual share of current-dollar GDPBEA value-added share from 1997 through 2025. This is an accounting composition measure, not a market share.6.0%5.0%4.0%3.0%2.0%19972004201120182025
4.0%1997+0.4 pplong-run shift4.4%2025
Exact broad-sector boundary

BEA line 11 and Census NAICS 23 share the declared broad-sector classification used by this profile. BEA value added measures an industry's contribution to GDP. It is not sales, gross output, profit, a markup, market share, concentration, a legal antitrust market, or evidence of competitive harm or causation. Current-dollar value-added shares reflect both prices and quantities. Real value added uses chained 2017 dollars and is suitable for growth comparisons, but chained-dollar industry components are not additive. Quarterly levels are seasonally adjusted at annual rates, and quarterly growth and contribution measures retain BEA's published annualized convention. The BEA table contains nested industries, cross-industry aggregates, and addenda. Only the 20 major-industry rows form the composition view; summing those rows with their children, parent aggregates, or addenda would double count activity.

BEA domestic production requirements

Construction in the U.S. production network

Exact published code bridge from Census NAICS 23 to BEA summary industry 23.
Exact 71-industry line
BEA lines in scope
1
one exact published industry
Annual matrices
28
1997-2024
Raw matrix cells
1,988
retained without aggregation
Net requirement
1.7229
domestic output per $1 final use
Own requirement
1.0049
diagonal direct + indirect
Exact accounting line

Census NAICS 23 and BEA summary industry 23 share the exact published code used by this profile. A domestic total-requirements coefficient reports the U.S. output required from the supplier-row industry, directly and indirectly, per dollar of output delivered to final use by the buyer-column industry. It is not observed spending, a contract, a firm supplier link, market share, concentration, a legal antitrust market, competitive harm, or causation. Rows are supplying industries and columns are buyer industries delivering output to final use. Reading down a buyer column traces upstream requirements; reading across a supplier row traces the industries whose final-use output requires that supplier. BEA requirements tables use fixed input structures, constant returns to scale, and no input substitution. Coefficients are average, ex-post industry relationships; domestic import adjustments are estimated and do not identify firm-specific sourcing. Diagonal values include an industry's own direct and indirect requirements. Published negative coefficients are retained as accounting adjustments and must not be ranked as positive supply requirements.

Longitudinal sector profile

Business formation and job flows since 1978

46 annual BDS records compare Construction with the national series while preserving the BDS universe.
Construction
13.016%
2023 sector rate
United States
10.608%
2023 national rate
Sector gap
+2.408 pp
Above U.S. rate
Joined-sector rank
#3
of 17 by magnitude

Establishment entry rate

Construction and the United States

Entering establishments as a share of the Census BDS establishment denominator.
ConstructionUnited States
2023Construction13.016%United States10.608%Gap +2.408 pp
1978: United States 15.146%; Construction 22.191%1979: United States 13.970%; Construction 19.110%1980: United States 12.806%; Construction 15.879%1981: United States 12.797%; Construction 14.273%1982: United States 12.464%; Construction 13.250%1983: United States 13.389%; Construction 16.033%1984: United States 14.534%; Construction 19.656%1985: United States 13.810%; Construction 19.127%1986: United States 14.095%; Construction 18.310%1987: United States 14.325%; Construction 18.840%1988: United States 13.959%; Construction 16.859%1989: United States 13.368%; Construction 15.866%1990: United States 12.683%; Construction 15.859%1991: United States 12.358%; Construction 13.692%1992: United States 11.577%; Construction 14.348%1993: United States 11.509%; Construction 15.651%1994: United States 11.885%; Construction 16.161%1995: United States 12.058%; Construction 16.459%1996: United States 11.795%; Construction 14.781%1997: United States 12.200%; Construction 14.799%1998: United States 11.438%; Construction 13.828%1999: United States 11.115%; Construction 13.767%2000: United States 10.848%; Construction 12.972%2001: United States 10.990%; Construction 12.461%2002: United States 11.911%; Construction 13.395%2003: United States 11.425%; Construction 14.380%2004: United States 11.511%; Construction 15.954%2005: United States 11.615%; Construction 15.750%2006: United States 12.495%; Construction 16.686%2007: United States 11.761%; Construction 14.166%2008: United States 10.307%; Construction 11.821%2009: United States 9.281%; Construction 9.919%2010: United States 9.495%; Construction 11.834%2011: United States 9.886%; Construction 13.225%2012: United States 10.018%; Construction 13.820%2013: United States 9.807%; Construction 12.780%2014: United States 9.906%; Construction 13.094%2015: United States 10.025%; Construction 13.220%2016: United States 10.194%; Construction 13.350%2017: United States 9.675%; Construction 12.695%2018: United States 9.414%; Construction 12.776%2019: United States 9.613%; Construction 12.930%2020: United States 9.637%; Construction 12.454%2021: United States 10.845%; Construction 13.613%2022: United States 11.651%; Construction 14.080%2023: United States 10.608%; Construction 13.016%
1978
22.191%
-9.175 pp to latest
2018
12.776%
Higher than 2018
Series high / 1978
22.191%
Highest published rate
Series low / 2009
9.919%
Lowest published rate

Exact annual series

Sector and national values

2023 back to 1978
Establishment entry rate for Construction and the United States, with the sector-minus-national gap.
Year23United StatesGap
202313.016%10.608%+2.408 pp
202214.08%11.651%+2.429 pp
202113.613%10.845%+2.768 pp
202012.454%9.637%+2.817 pp
201912.93%9.613%+3.317 pp
201812.776%9.414%+3.362 pp
201712.695%9.675%+3.02 pp
201613.35%10.194%+3.156 pp
201513.22%10.025%+3.195 pp
201413.094%9.906%+3.188 pp
201312.78%9.807%+2.973 pp
201213.82%10.018%+3.802 pp
201113.225%9.886%+3.339 pp
201011.834%9.495%+2.339 pp
20099.919%9.281%+0.638 pp
200811.821%10.307%+1.514 pp
200714.166%11.761%+2.405 pp
200616.686%12.495%+4.191 pp
200515.75%11.615%+4.135 pp
200415.954%11.511%+4.443 pp
200314.38%11.425%+2.955 pp
200213.395%11.911%+1.484 pp
200112.461%10.99%+1.471 pp
200012.972%10.848%+2.124 pp
199913.767%11.115%+2.652 pp
199813.828%11.438%+2.39 pp
199714.799%12.2%+2.599 pp
199614.781%11.795%+2.986 pp
199516.459%12.058%+4.401 pp
199416.161%11.885%+4.276 pp
199315.651%11.509%+4.142 pp
199214.348%11.577%+2.771 pp
199113.692%12.358%+1.334 pp
199015.859%12.683%+3.176 pp
198915.866%13.368%+2.498 pp
198816.859%13.959%+2.9 pp
198718.84%14.325%+4.515 pp
198618.31%14.095%+4.215 pp
198519.127%13.81%+5.317 pp
198419.656%14.534%+5.122 pp
198316.033%13.389%+2.644 pp
198213.25%12.464%+0.786 pp
198114.273%12.797%+1.476 pp
198015.879%12.806%+3.073 pp
197919.11%13.97%+5.14 pp
197822.191%15.146%+7.045 pp

Sector structure lab

Map concentration inside Construction

Each bubble is one six-digit industry. Horizontal position is revenue-based HHI, vertical position is CR4, and bubble area follows the selected economic scale.

Detailed industries31Six-digit rows
Median HHI19.426 published
Median CR46.4%31 published
HHI 2,500+0Detailed rows
Published weight91.8%Revenue in chart

Bubble area = revenue

26 rows have both HHI and CR4 / 5 HHI values withheld

Top-five revenue share / 53.7%
NAICS 238220: Plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors; HHI 9.3; CR4 4.7%; Revenue $297.6B; 10.19% of sectorNAICS 236117: New housing for-sale builders; HHI 248.9; CR4 24.6%; Revenue $276.6B; 9.47% of sectorNAICS 238210: Electrical contractors and other wiring installation contractors; HHI 11.6; CR4 4.8%; Revenue $249.2B; 8.53% of sectorNAICS 237310: Highway, street, and bridge construction; HHI 19.6; CR4 5.4%; Revenue $160.3B; 5.49% of sectorNAICS 238910: Site preparation contractors; HHI 3.8; CR4 2.2%; Revenue $158.7B; 5.43% of sectorNAICS 236118: Residential remodelers; HHI 1.9; CR4 1.9%; Revenue $129.1B; 4.42% of sectorNAICS 236115: New single-family housing construction (except for-sale builders); HHI 14.5; CR4 6.5%; Revenue $117.8B; 4.03% of sectorNAICS 237130: Power and communication line and related structures construction; HHI 156.2; CR4 19.2%; Revenue $102.9B; 3.52% of sectorNAICS 238110: Poured concrete foundation and structure contractors; HHI 12.8; CR4 5.2%; Revenue $78.7B; 2.70% of sectorNAICS 236116: New multifamily housing construction (except for-sale builders); HHI 22.8; CR4 5.5%; Revenue $77.9B; 2.67% of sectorNAICS 237110: Water and sewer line and related structures construction; HHI 11.1; CR4 4.2%; Revenue $56.9B; 1.95% of sectorNAICS 237120: Oil and gas pipeline and related structures construction; HHI 173.6; CR4 21.6%; Revenue $44.1B; 1.51% of sectorNAICS 238350: Finish carpentry contractors; HHI 9.1; CR4 4.4%; Revenue $42.7B; 1.46% of sectorNAICS 238290: Other building equipment contractors; HHI 221.8; CR4 27.7%; Revenue $42.4B; 1.45% of sectorNAICS 236210: Industrial building construction; HHI 90.6; CR4 13.1%; Revenue $36.2B; 1.24% of sectorNAICS 237990: Other heavy and civil engineering construction; HHI 139.4; CR4 17.9%; Revenue $34B; 1.16% of sectorNAICS 238320: Painting and wall covering contractors; HHI 2.9; CR4 2.1%; Revenue $33B; 1.13% of sectorNAICS 238130: Framing contractors; HHI 20; CR4 5.9%; Revenue $29.1B; 1.00% of sectorNAICS 238140: Masonry contractors; HHI 9; CR4 4.1%; Revenue $28.6B; 0.98% of sectorNAICS 238330: Flooring contractors; HHI 12.4; CR4 4.7%; Revenue $24.2B; 0.83% of sectorNAICS 238120: Structural steel and precast concrete contractors; HHI 25.4; CR4 6.9%; Revenue $19.7B; 0.67% of sectorNAICS 238150: Glass and glazing contractors; HHI 19.2; CR4 6.8%; Revenue $18.9B; 0.65% of sectorNAICS 238390: Other building finishing contractors; HHI 23.2; CR4 6.6%; Revenue $14.4B; 0.49% of sectorNAICS 238340: Tile and terrazzo contractors; HHI 18.6; CR4 6.4%; Revenue $12.2B; 0.42% of sectorNAICS 238190: Other foundation, structure, and building exterior contractors; HHI 27.4; CR4 8.3%; Revenue $10.6B; 0.36% of sectorNAICS 236220: Commercial and institutional building construction; HHI 23.1; CR4 6.8%; Revenue $585.6B; 20.05% of sector
0-499500-9991,000-1,4991,500-2,4992,500+Withheld

Bubble size describes economic weight inside this NAICS sector. HHI and CR4 remain national statistical screens, not product-market definitions or findings of market power.

Sector intelligence dossier

From industry structure to antitrust evidence

Join the Census screen for Construction to descendant curated markets, public enforcement records, research outputs, and the next evidence queue.

Observatory coverage

Research coverage gap

NAICS 23 / national sector screen

Detailed industries

31

26 HHI published

Curated markets

0

0 exact NAICS crosswalks

Policy actions

0

0 linked reports

Evidence sources

0

0 Census HHI at 2,500+

Explicit research gap

No descendant market dossier is curated yet

The sector remains fully available as a Census structure screen. Product boundaries, geographic scope, and market-specific public sources still need to be assembled before a legal-market bridge can be published.

Market-definition protocol

Descendant NAICS codes provide a research crosswalk only. They do not make a curated product and geographic market equivalent to its Census industry, and market metrics are never aggregated into a sector score.

Review method

Firm concentration ladder

How much revenue the largest firms hold

Each rung widens the group of largest firms included in the Census concentration ratio.

CR4Four largest firms2.6%
CR8Eight largest firms4%
CR20Twenty largest firms6.8%
CR50Fifty largest firms11.4%

Same-level benchmark

Position in the hierarchy

MeasureThis rowMedian
HHI3.923
CR42.6%6.9%
Revenue$2.9T$1.3T
Firms785.9K265.5K

HHI distance from median

-19.1

NAICS hierarchy

Move up or down the classification tree

Level 2 of 6

Federal merger-review composition

Where NAICS 23 appears in HSR review releases

Each release aggregates its own published acquired-entity 3-digit rows. Volume, review stages, labels, denominators, and source custody remain separate from the Census concentration screen.

Open filtered HSR atlas

FY2023 sector aggregate

Construction

3 published 3-digit rows

Exact code + normalized label
42adjusted transactionsRank 13 of 19classified HSR sectors
Published share
2.4%
of adjusted release transactions
Agency clearances
1
0.5% of release / rank 14
Second Requests
0
0.0% of release / rank 9
Intra-industry flags
3
3.8% of release / rank 6

FY2024 sector aggregate

Construction

3 published 3-digit rows

Exact code + normalized label
54adjusted transactionsRank 13 of 19classified HSR sectors
Published share
2.7%
of adjusted release transactions
Agency clearances
2
1.1% of release / rank 15
Second Requests
0
0.0% of release / rank 17
Intra-industry flags
1
1.3% of release / rank 12

Adjacent-release shift

Stable HSR sector code and label

FY2023 to FY2024

Exact HSR sector code 23 is published in FY2023 and FY2024 with a stable source label. The deltas compare adjacent release aggregates without recoding their 3-digit rows.

Transactions
+12
Published share
+0.3 pp
Clearances
+1
Second Requests
0
Intra-industry
-2
Published rows
0

Interpretation boundary

This bridge joins only the exact broad-sector NAICS code published by both sources. The 2022 Economic Census sector row measures economy-wide employer-firm structure, while each HSR sector aggregate sums the release's published acquired-entity 3-digit rows. The shared code does not define a legal antitrust market, measure a sector merger rate, establish competitive harm, or score agency performance.

Intra-industry field

An intra-industry transaction means the acquiring and acquired persons both reported revenue in the same 3-digit NAICS code. It does not establish a horizontal overlap, relevant antitrust market, or competitive effect.

Nearest structural neighbors

Comparable fingerprints across the economy

Smallest mean national-percentile gaps across HHI, CR4, CR8, revenue, employment, and employer firms, using the same published dimensions as this row.

Evidence access

Reuse this exact row

Source citation

U.S. Census Bureau, 2022 Economic Census, EC2200SIZECONCEN: Selected Sectors - Concentration of Largest Firms for the United States, released April 2025.

Industry screen, not market conclusion

A NAICS industry is a statistical classification, not a legally defined antitrust market. Use these national revenue concentration measures to screen where deeper product and geographic market analysis may be warranted, not to infer market power or liability.

Market definition method
Construction industry concentration (NAICS 23) | Antitrust Radar