How many jobs has the construction equipment industry lost as a result of the current economic crisis?
The construction equipment industry has been one of the hardest hit during this slump and continues to weigh down the rest of the economy. The respected analysts at IHS Global Insight estimate that this sector’s economic output has contracted by nearly 40 percent resulting in the loss of approximately 550,000 jobs. Put another way, two out of every 25 jobs (8 percent) lost since the start of this Great Recession can be traced to the downturn in construction equipment spending. • How many machines are sitting unused across the country? If we start those up, how many jobs will it create? While it’s almost impossible to say exactly how many machines are sitting unused, we estimate that there are hundreds of thousands considering that spending on construction equipment has fallen by more than 50 percent. What we can say with certainty is that investing in long-term funding to improve our nation’s infrastructure will also create millions of good-paying jobs. For instance, transportation spe
