• While overall employment in the State of Kansas increased 3.99% between 1997 and 2002, employment within the construction industry rose by 10.91%, creating 6,755 new construction jobs and creating 403 new construction establishments in 5 years.

• While the average worker in Kansas brought home $30,236 in pay in 2002, the state’s construction workers made on average $33,462, an increase of 9.64% more than the average worker in Kansas. 

• Construction workers in Kansas saw a salary increase of 18.01% from 1997-2002, compared to the average salary increase construction workers across the United States, which increased by 14.97%. 

• The number of businesses in Kansas grew from 57,541 in 1997 to 58,820 in 2002, an increase of 2.22%.  Construction establishments in Kansas however, increased by 5.66% from 7,115 in 1997 to 7,518 in 2002.

• Of the 1,279 new businesses established between 1997 and 2002 in Kansas, 403 or 31.51% of those establishments were in the construction industry. 

• According to Union Membership and Coverage Database, available at www.unionstats.com, in 2006, only 15.8 percent of Kansas’s private construction workforce belonged to a construction trade union.  That means that approximately 85 out of 100 Kansas’s private construction workers do not belong to a labor union.

Data are from the U.S. Bureau of the Census except where noted.

• Kansas does not have a state prevailing wage law.