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California training programs, and what happened to the people who took them

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Construction Laborers

SOC 47-2061 · 2024-2034

Perform tasks involving physical labor at construction sites. May operate hand and power tools of all types: air hammers, earth tampers, cement mixers, small mechanical hoists, surveying and measuring equipment, and a variety of other equipment and instruments. May clean and prepare sites, dig trenches, set braces to support the sides of excavations, erect scaffolding, and clean up rubble, debris, and other waste materials. May assist other craft workers.

How the U.S. Department of Labor describes this work. Published in English only.

What California expects of this job

Typical pay in California
$61,903per year
Projected openings
111,420
Projected change
+10.2%
Usually needs
No formal educational credential

Bright Outlook — a U.S. Department of Labor designation
Rapid Growth · Numerous Job Openings

The Department's own designation, made from its national projections. It is not this project's assessment and it is not California's: every other figure on this page comes from California's projection, which can point the other way and for some occupations does.

Skills this work uses most

O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, rates how important each of these is to this work, and they are listed in that order, most important first. The ratings themselves are not shown, because the data carries the number without the scale it was measured on. The names are as published, in English.

  1. Speaking
  2. Coordination
  3. Operation and Control
  4. Active Listening
  5. Operations Monitoring
  6. Critical Thinking

Pay by region

RegionTypical pay in CaliforniaProjected openings
Oakland-Fremont-Berkeley MD (Alameda and Contra Costa Counties)$79,3838,950
San Francisco-San Mateo-Redwood City MD (San Francisco and San Mateo Counties)$78,3334,550
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara MSA (San Benito and Santa Clara Counties)$73,9315,650
San Rafael MD (Marin County)$68,196810
Santa Rosa-Petaluma MSA (Sonoma County)$65,3972,020
Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom MSA (El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, and Yolo Counties)$62,2069,360
Vallejo MSA (Solano County)$62,1451,460
San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles MSA (San Luis Obispo County)$62,0931,510
Anaheim-Santa Ana-Irvine MD (Orange County)$62,05811,500
Santa Cruz-Watsonville MSA (Santa Cruz County)$61,661830
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale MD (Los Angeles County)$60,98117,630
Bakersfield-Delano MSA (Kern County)$60,5492,560
Hanford-Corcoran MSA (Kings County)$60,539170
Redding MSA (Shasta County)$60,374690
San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad MSA (San Diego County)$60,32210,760
Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario MSA (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties)$59,94216,480
Salinas MSA (Monterey County)$59,0361,000
Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura MSA (Ventura County)$58,8092,510
North Valley-Northern Mountains Region (Colusa, Glenn, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Tehama, and Trinity Counties)$58,7061,260
Santa Maria-Santa Barbara MSA (Santa Barbara County)$58,1501,410
Fresno MSA (Fresno and Madera Counties)$58,0173,570
North Coast Region (Del Norte, Humboldt, Lake, and Mendocino Counties)$57,337920
Merced MSA (Merced County)$56,956600
Modesto MSA (Stanislaus County)$56,9561,360
Stockton-Lodi MSA (San Joaquin County)$55,0012,340
Eastern Sierra-Mother Lode Region (Alpine, Amador, Calaveras, Inyo, Mariposa, Mono, and Tuolumne Counties)$54,012630
Napa MSA (Napa County)$53,703670
Chico MSA (Butte County)$53,292710
El Centro MSA (Imperial County)$52,376390
Visalia MSA (Tulare County)$51,0791,200
Yuba City MSA (Sutter and Yuba Counties)$50,584560

What the pay actually ranges across

The lowest-paid tenth earn under
$42,059
A quarter earn under
$49,444
Half earn under
$61,903
Three quarters earn under
$80,647
The highest-paid tenth earn over
$96,156

A median is one point. These are the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2026 figures for California, and they say how far apart the people doing this job actually are. Read them as the spread across everyone already in the work — not as a starting wage and not as a promise about where anyone lands.

Similar work

O*NET, the U.S. Department of Labor's occupation database, names these as occupations involving work similar to this one — its own reading of the job, not a grouping by code. They keep O*NET's order, and only those California publishes a projection for are shown.

OccupationTypical pay in CaliforniaProjected openingsProjected change
Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators$85,3821,280+7.1%
Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers$64,39920,640+3.1%
Pipelayers$78,2441,0700%
Maintenance Workers, Machinery$69,7583,7500%
Brickmasons and Blockmasons$70,9214,180+5.7%
Structural Iron and Steel Workers$78,4396,220+5.5%

Programs that train for this job — 34