It would be interesting to see the breakdown of total dollar value by type of construction. For example where I live there seem to be mostly (by total number of

It would be interesting to see the breakdown of total dollar value by type of construction. For example where I live there seem to be mostly (by total number of units) large multi-family buildings, and then a smaller number of new custom homes and additions/large remodels. My experience goes against what the article says about hours for the custom/remodeling jobs. It seems that here GCs give an estimate for a project, but based on an estimate of hours, and the final bill will come in based on the hours. Similarly, subcontractors will give an estimate of the total, but then will have labor in their invoices to the GCs, which then get passed on to the customer. If anything, there seems to be a tendency of being very generous to say the least with what counts as a work hour. Especially GCs dropping people off in the morning and picking them up in the afternoon and "project managing" the rest of the day, but in some cases stuff like commutes, lunch, breaks, etc seems to make it into the count. That said, it might be specific to my area, or this type of construction is minimal in total dollar value compared to the industry, so I'm not arguing against the main point of the article. Even if we halve the real hours, construction's productivity gains are nowhere near the gains of agriculture or manufacturing, probably just enough to get back to the peak of the late 60s. And in any case, as a customer I pay for the final project so the inflated hours still count for my view of productivity.