Calling it “one of the bright spots of the labor market,” the Washington Post reports that one-fifth of the jobs created in December were in the construction sector. This is only the third time since 2009 that the construction industry had added more than 30,000 jobs. Arne L. Kallenberg, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill described construction jobs as “the backbone of the middle class for many, many years.” The Post notes, however, that a similar increase at the end of 2011 was followed by a loss of 53,000 jobs in spring, 2012.

The growth in construction should be good news for those leaving high school with no plans of college. Unemployment among 16- to 19-year-olds is more than twenty-five percent, and among 20- to 24-year-olds it is almost fourteen percent. Ken Simonson, the chief economist of the Associated General Contractors of America notes that “construction will give them much more an option in 2013.”