Las Vegas Led US in 2025 Construction Job Losses
Posted on: March 5, 2026, 09:32h.
Last updated on: March 5, 2026, 09:32h.
- Las Vegas led the nation in construction job losses during 2025 with 8,600 cuts
- High reliance on foreign-born labor made the local industry vulnerable to immigration enforcement
- A decline in international tourism further suppressed demand for new resort and retail construction
Las Vegas lost more construction jobs in 2025 than any other metropolitan area, according to a new report. The percentage (11%) of jobs lost here led all 360 metro regions and tied in number (around 8,600) with New York. According to the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), Las Vegas’ workforce fell from 79,200 to 70,200 between December 2024 and December 2025.
In an interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, AGC chief economist Ken Simonson identified two localized factors for the bad news. The first was Las Vegas’ heavy reliance on foreign-born construction workers.
“Nevada is one five states in which half or more of all construction trades workers in 2024 were foreign-born,” Simonson told the newspaper. “That makes the state vulnerable to immigration enforcement actions affecting construction job sites or workers who may choose to leave or avoid job sites.”
Census data supports this demographic trend. Nevada currently has one of the lowest rates of residents born in the U.S. (78.7%) of all 50 states.
“To the extent that immigration is reduced or halted, it will also be harder to find new workers,” Simonson said, warning that this labor vacuum would likely stall population-related construction, including schools, housing, and retail.
The other factor Simonson blamed for Las Vegas’ construction was its decline in international visitors — from 5.02 million in 2024 to 4.6 million in 2025, a 7.5% drop.
Simonson said this “hits Nevada’s hotel, casino/amusement/entertainment and retain/restaurant construction sectors harder than in many other states.”
And the situation isn’t about to change anytime soon. Despite all the optimistic quarterly report projections from casino CEOs, Simonson said he expects Las Vegas “in particular” to “again lag (behind) other locations in construction employment in 2026.”
Symbolic Construction Fail
Ironically, this news comes the same week that Las Vegas hosts CONEXPO-CON/AGG, the largest construction trade show in the country. The event, which kicked off Tuesday morning at the Las Vegas Convention Center, hoped to set a world record for the most people wearing safety vests in one place.
Though more than 2,640 people donned the vest, the attempt ultimately fell short when organizers ran out of time during the verification process. The current record stands at 2,499 participants, set in Australia in 2019.
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