HVAC Industry Employment: Monthly Jobs at Plumbing and HVAC Contractors Since 1990

This month in brief

• Plumbing and HVAC contractors employed 1,338,600 people in August 2026 (seasonally adjusted, preliminary), the highest monthly figure since BLS began this series in 1990.
• The industry set a new monthly high in 12 of the 20 months from January 2025 to August 2026, but the August 2026 high beat July by only 100 jobs, which is inside normal revision range.
• From February 2020 to August 2026, the industry grew 15.1%, 1.54 times the 9.8% growth of all construction and 3.43 times the 4.4% growth of total nonfarm jobs.
• The pace slowed in 2025: an average of 840 jobs a month, down from 2,980 in 2024; the first eight months of 2026 averaged 2,200.
• QCEW counts 1,315,566 private jobs in the industry in 2025, 179,409 more than in 2019 (15.8%). Texas (24,551) and Florida (17,165) added the most.
• Per resident, Idaho led with 1.87 jobs added per 1,000 people, more than three times the U.S. figure of 0.52; New York was the only state with fewer jobs in 2025 than in 2019.
• Production and nonsupervisory workers earned $42.01 an hour in August 2026, up 38.7% since February 2020; after inflation, the gain is 7.0%.
• These are jobs at contractors, not HVAC technicians: in May 2025 only 22.69% of the industry's jobs were HVAC mechanics and installers, and 25.22% were plumbers (BLS OEWS).

HVAC industry employment hit a new high of 1,338,600 jobs in August 2026

The monthly count keeps setting records, but by small margins. The August 2026 figure is preliminary and only 100 jobs above July.

BLS estimates that plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors (NAICS 238220) employed 1,338,600 people in August 2026, seasonally adjusted (BLS CES, series CES2023822001). July 2026 stood at 1,338,500. Both are the highest values since the series begins in January 1990, when the industry employed 591,500.

Records have been routine lately: 12 of the 20 months from January 2025 to August 2026 set a new high. Growth has been slower than in the years just after 2020. Monthly gains averaged 3,980 in 2022, 3,080 in 2023 and 2,980 in 2024, then dropped to 840 in 2025. From December 2025 to August 2026 they averaged 2,200.

On an annual-average basis (not seasonally adjusted), employment was 1,317,300 in 2025, up 1.6% from 2024, after a 3.1% rise the year before. The industry shrank in only six years since 1990: 1991, 1992, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2020.

Since February 2020, plumbing and HVAC payrolls grew 1.54 times as fast as construction

Contractors in this code added 175,700 jobs between February 2020 and August 2026, about a quarter of construction's whole net gain.

Using the same end month for every series (August 2026), plumbing and HVAC contractors grew 15.1% from February 2020. Over the same period, specialty trade contractors as a group grew 9.5%, construction 9.8% and total nonfarm payrolls 4.4% (BLS CES; BLS CES total nonfarm).

The industry held 15.3% of construction jobs in February 2020 and 16.0% in August 2026. It accounted for 23.6% of construction's net job gain over that span: 175,700 of 743,000. The share has climbed for decades, from 10.9% in January 1990, and it kept rising through both the housing bust and the 2020 shutdowns.

Over the 12 months to August 2026, the industry grew 1.78%, against 1.38% for construction and 0.34% for all nonfarm jobs. Plumbing and HVAC contractors now hold 0.84% of all U.S. payroll jobs.

Idaho added the most jobs per resident since 2019; New York was the only state to shrink

Absolute gains follow population: Texas and Florida added the most. Measured against residents, the fastest growth was in the Mountain West, led by Idaho.

QCEW counts private jobs reported to state unemployment insurance programs. At NAICS 23822, the count rose from 1,136,157 in 2019 to 1,315,566 in 2025, a gain of 179,409 or 15.8% (QCEW 2019; BLS QCEW 2025). Texas added 24,551, Florida 17,165, Arizona 9,228, North Carolina 8,270 and Ohio 7,694.

Jobs added per 1,000 residents: Change in QCEW private annual-average employment at NAICS 23822 from 2019 to 2025, divided by the state's July 2025 resident population (Census Vintage 2025), times 1,000. It shows how much the trade's payroll grew relative to the size of the state's market. Our calculation; not published by BLS.

Measured that way, Idaho ranks first with 1.87 jobs added per 1,000 residents, followed by Arizona (1.21), Nevada (1.15) and Utah (1.14). The U.S. figure is 0.52, and 33 of the 49 states with data beat it. At the bottom are Maryland (0.14), California (0.11) and New York (-0.09).

In percentage terms, Idaho grew 56.4%, followed by Arizona (33.8%), Arkansas (32.1%) and New Mexico (32.0%). New York lost 1,855 jobs (-2.6%). Alaska and the District of Columbia are left out of the change ranking because BLS suppressed their 2019 values.

The latest quarter shows how uneven the market has become. From March 2025 to March 2026, U.S. employment in the industry rose 1.9%, but 12 states fell, including Oregon (-5.4%), Colorado (-2.7%) and Arizona (-1.5%). Idaho led at 13.6% (QCEW first quarter 2026, preliminary).

Field workers below supervisor level earn $42.01 an hour, 7.1% above the construction average

Hourly pay for production and nonsupervisory workers rose 38.7% from February 2020 to August 2026. After inflation, the rise is 7.0%. The workweek barely moved.

CES publishes hours and earnings for this industry's production and nonsupervisory employees, who made up 72.8% of its jobs in August 2026 (BLS CES hours and earnings). Their average hourly earnings were $42.01 in August 2026, against $30.29 in February 2020 and $14.35 in January 1990.

Construction as a whole paid $39.24 an hour to the same class of worker in August 2026. The plumbing and HVAC premium widened from 4.0% in February 2020 to 7.1%. In 1982-84 dollars (BLS's own deflated series), plumbing and HVAC hourly earnings rose 7.0% over the period, against 4.0% for construction.

The average workweek for these workers was 39.8 hours in August 2026, against 39.6 in February 2020. Weekly earnings reached $1,672.00, up 39.4%. For all employees, including supervisors, average hourly earnings were $42.44.

Only 22.69% of jobs at these contractors are HVAC mechanics

NAICS 238220 is a mixed trade code. In May 2025, plumbers outnumbered HVAC mechanics inside it, and 12.28% of its jobs were office and administrative roles.

The Census Bureau's 2022 NAICS definition puts HVAC contractors, plumbing contractors, mechanical contractors, fire sprinkler installers and lawn sprinkler installers in the same industry, 238220 (Census NAICS 2022). BLS occupational data show what that mix looks like. In May 2025, OEWS counted 1,310,510 jobs in the industry: 330,570 plumbers, pipefitters and steamfitters (25.22%) and 297,290 HVAC mechanics and installers (22.69%) (BLS OEWS May 2025).

Viewed from the occupation's side, the 297,290 HVAC mechanics at these contractors were 72.6% of the 409,670 HVAC mechanics and installers on U.S. payrolls in May 2025 (BLS OEWS national). The rest work for building owners, schools, hospitals, equipment dealers and other employers.

After 2007 the trade needed 103 months to regain its jobs; after 2020 it needed 17

The two most recent downturns hit this industry very differently. The housing bust was deep and slow to reverse. The 2020 shutdowns caused a sharp drop that was recovered in under a year and a half.

Employment peaked at 1,007,600 in July 2007 and fell to 788,800 in June 2010, a loss of 218,800 jobs or 21.7%. The industry did not pass its 2007 peak until Feb 2016, 103 months later. In 2020, payrolls fell 13.4% from February to April (155,400 jobs) and were back above the February level by Jul 2021 (BLS CES).

The August 2026 level is 32.9% above the 2007 peak. The not seasonally adjusted series also shows a regular summer bulge. In 2025, employment ran from 1,293,700 in January to 1,335,400 in July, a swing of 41,700 jobs or 3.2%.

What the payroll count includes, and why monthly figures change after release

CES counts jobs at employers, not people or licenses, and every month is revised twice before the annual benchmark. QCEW and CES agree closely for 2025, within 0.13%.

All employees (CES): Everyone on an establishment's payroll in the pay period that includes the 12th of the month, full or part time, in any occupation. Sole proprietors and the unincorporated self-employed are excluded (BLS Handbook of Methods).

Production and nonsupervisory employees: In construction, the workers BLS classes as construction employees, as opposed to supervisors and managers. CES hours and earnings cover private-sector workers only.

• Seasonal adjustment: the headline figures here use BLS's seasonally adjusted series (CES2023822001). The not seasonally adjusted series (CEU2023822001) is shown in the tracker table and runs higher in summer.
• Revisions: the August 2026 value is flagged preliminary. On 11 February 2026, the annual benchmark cut March 2025 total nonfarm employment by 898,000 and construction by 30,000 (BLS benchmark article).
• Cross-check: the CES 2025 annual average (1,317,300) is 0.13% above the QCEW 2025 private count (1,315,566), so the national tracker and the state ranking describe the same workforce.
• Scope: NAICS 238220 includes plumbing, fire sprinkler and lawn sprinkler contractors as well as HVAC. BLS does not publish an HVAC-only payroll series.

This report describes public employment statistics. It is not legal, tax, financial or employment advice; owners making hiring or transaction decisions should rely on their own records and professional advisers. For how these labor numbers fit a sale, see the site's guide to selling an HVAC business.

Momentum and share analysis

Download the calculations (CSV)

Findings to track

1. Plumbing and HVAC contractors employed 1,338,600 people in August 2026, seasonally adjusted and preliminary, an all-time high for a series that began at 591,500 in January 1990.^[1]
2. Employment at plumbing and HVAC contractors grew 126.3% from January 1990 to August 2026.^[1]
3. From February 2020 to August 2026, plumbing and HVAC contractor jobs grew 15.1%, against 9.5% for all specialty trade contractors, 9.8% for construction and 4.4% for total nonfarm employment.^[1][3]
4. Plumbing and HVAC contractors held 16.0% of U.S. construction jobs in August 2026 but supplied 23.6% of construction's net job gain since February 2020 (175,700 of 743,000).^[1]
5. The industry's share of construction employment rose from 10.9% in January 1990 to 16.0% in August 2026.^[1]
6. Job growth slowed to an average of 840 a month in 2025, from 2,980 in 2024 and 3,980 in 2022, then picked up to 2,200 a month from December 2025 to August 2026.^[1]
7. Over the 12 months to August 2026, plumbing and HVAC jobs grew 1.78%, against 1.38% for construction and 0.34% for total nonfarm.^[1][3]
8. QCEW counted 1,315,566 private jobs at NAICS 23822 in 2025, up 179,409 or 15.8% from 1,136,157 in 2019.^[9][10]
9. Idaho added 1.87 plumbing and HVAC contractor jobs per 1,000 residents from 2019 to 2025, the highest rate of 49 states with data; the U.S. rate was 0.52.^[9][10][16]
10. Texas added 24,551 jobs and Florida 17,165 from 2019 to 2025, together 23.3% of the national gain.^[9][10]
11. New York was the only state with fewer plumbing and HVAC contractor jobs in 2025 than in 2019, down 1,855 or -2.6%.^[9][10]
12. Production and nonsupervisory workers at plumbing and HVAC contractors averaged $42.01 an hour in August 2026, 7.1% above the construction average of $39.24; the gap was 4.0% in February 2020.^[2]
13. In 1982-84 dollars, hourly earnings for these workers rose 7.0% from February 2020 to August 2026, from $11.99 to $12.83.^[2]
14. In May 2025, 72.6% of the 409,670 HVAC mechanics and installers on U.S. payrolls worked for plumbing and HVAC contractors (our calculation from BLS OEWS).^[18][19]
15. After the July 2007 peak, employment fell 21.7% and took 103 months to pass the old high; after February 2020 it fell 13.4% and recovered in 17 months.^[1]

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Reproduce this analysis

Every figure comes from the files below. The scripts that pulled and computed them are kept with the report and can be re-run.

Data quality and exclusions

• CES: 440 monthly seasonally adjusted observations used for NAICS 238220; only August 2026 carries the preliminary (P) flag in the file. No observation for this industry carries the 2025 shutdown footnote.
• CES annual averages are the BLS-published M13 values, not our own means of monthly figures.
• QCEW: the 6-digit slice (238220.csv) returned HTTP 404; the 5-digit slice 23822.csv was used, which covers the same single 6-digit industry.
• QCEW 2019: 2 of 51 state rows (Alaska, District of Columbia) carry disclosure code N and are excluded from change rankings; 0 of 51 rows are suppressed in 2025.
• QCEW consistency: the 49 states with 2019 data account for 179,094 of the national 179,409-job gain; the remainder reflects the 2 suppressed jurisdictions and any jobs BLS does not assign to a single state.
• QCEW government-owned rows (own_code 3) are excluded; they are a small number of jobs nationally.
• OEWS: 2 of the 9 workbooks in the industry zip and the national workbook were used; other files were not opened.
• Census: 51 state-level rows used; regional, national and Puerto Rico rows excluded. The national per-1,000 figures use the sum of the 51 rows.
• QCEW annual files for 2015, 2020 and 2021 to 2023 were downloaded for checks but not used in any published figure.

Methodology

Source selection: national monthly figures come from the BLS Current Employment Statistics (CES) flat files for NAICS 238220, total construction, specialty trade contractors and total nonfarm. State figures come from BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) open-data files for NAICS 23822, private ownership, annual averages for 2019, 2024 and 2025 and first-quarter files for 2025 and 2026. Population is the Census Bureau Vintage 2025 state file. Occupational mix comes from BLS OEWS May 2025 national industry-specific estimates. Trade and training-school pages were read only to compare coverage.

Inclusion and exclusion: the tracker uses seasonally adjusted series for monthly comparisons and BLS-published annual averages of unadjusted data for annual tables. QCEW state rows with disclosure code N (Alaska and the District of Columbia in 2019) are excluded from change rankings, not imputed. Government-owned QCEW rows are excluded so that state counts match the private CES scope.

Conflicting numbers: CES (sample survey) and QCEW (near-census of UI-covered jobs) differ slightly; for 2025 the CES annual average is 0.13% higher. CES is used for monthly and national figures, QCEW for states. OEWS counts are survey estimates for May 2025 and are not added to CES totals.

Derived metrics: every formula, input row and result is in derived_metrics.csv, and scripts/01 to 07 rebuild every table and figure from the raw files without network access after the downloads. Jobs added per 1,000 residents = (QCEW 2025 minus QCEW 2019) divided by July 2025 population times 1,000.

Limitations: NAICS 238220 mixes HVAC with plumbing and sprinkler contractors; payroll jobs exclude self-employed owners; the August 2026 value is preliminary and the February 2027 benchmark will revise April 2025 onward. Last updated 2026-11-02. Owners who want a valuation can use the form at sell-my-hvac-business.com; it is not part of this research.

This report presents published data with its limitations. It is not legal, financial or investment advice.

Sources, ranked by quality

Tier 1: primary and official sources (20)

• [1] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Current Employment Statistics flat file: Construction employment (ce.data.20a), data through August 2026 (detailed industries) and September 2026 (construction), file dated 2026-10-14. January 1990 to August 2026 (monthly). Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [2] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Current Employment Statistics flat file: Construction production and nonsupervisory hours and earnings (ce.data.20c). January 1990 to August 2026 (monthly). Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [3] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Current Employment Statistics flat file: Total nonfarm employment (ce.data.00a). 1939 to September 2026 (monthly). Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [4] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Current Employment Statistics series catalog (ce.series), series CES2023822001 and related. Series metadata as of 2026-10-14. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [5] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Employment Situation, September 2026 (USDL-26-1549, released 2026-10-02). September 2026. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [6] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Schedule of releases for The Employment Situation. October 2026 to November 2027 release dates. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [7] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. CES National Benchmark Article: estimates revised to incorporate March 2025 benchmarks (released with January 2026 data on 2026-02-11). March 2025 benchmark. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [8] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Handbook of Methods: Current Employment Statistics, concepts. Current methodology. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [9] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. QCEW open data, 2025 annual averages, NAICS 23822 (plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors), file last modified 2026-08-21. 2025 annual average. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [10] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. QCEW open data, 2019 annual averages, NAICS 23822. 2019 annual average. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [11] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. QCEW open data, 2024 annual averages, NAICS 23822. 2024 annual average. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [12] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. QCEW open data, first quarter 2026, NAICS 23822 (released 2026-08-28). January to March 2026. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [13] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. QCEW open data, first quarter 2025, NAICS 23822. January to March 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [14] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. County Employment and Wages, Fourth Quarter 2025 (USDL-26-0782, released 2026-06-02). Fourth quarter 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [15] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages home page (first quarter 2026 release of 2026-08-28; second quarter 2026 due 2026-12-02). Release calendar as of 2026-11-02. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [16] U.S. Census Bureau. Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for the United States, Regions, States, District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, Vintage 2025 (NST-EST2025-ALLDATA, posted 2026-01-27). July 1, 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [17] U.S. Census Bureau. 2022 NAICS descriptions: 238220 Plumbing, Heating, and Air-Conditioning Contractors. 2022 NAICS. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [18] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, national industry-specific estimates (nat5d_6d_M2025_dl in oesm25in4.zip; released 2026-05-15). May 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [19] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, national cross-industry estimates (oesm25nat.zip). May 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [20] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics home page (May 2025 release dated 2026-05-15). May 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.

Tier 3: journalism and expert commentary (3)

• [21] HVACClasses.org. Which States Have the Highest Demand for HVAC Workers in 2025? (updated 2025-04-29). OEWS May 2024; projections 2022 to 2032. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [22] TradeCareerPath. HVAC Technician Salary Statistics 2026: Pay, Openings, and Injury Rates (updated 2026-10-14). OEWS May 2025. Accessed 2026-11-02.
• [23] Contracting Business. No Lies or Damn Lies: Labor Statistics Say HVAC is the Place to Be (2004-02-01). BLS projections 2002 to 2012. Accessed 2026-11-02.