NEW YORK CITY-With 76% of the construction workers employed here also living here, the industry remains among the city’s more important job sectors, the New York Building Congress says in a new report. Based on an analysis of the US Census Bureau’s 2009 American Community Survey, the Building Congress says 176,351 construction industry workers lived in New York City last year, with Long Island and New Jersey residents accounting for the rest of the local workforce.

More than a third of those workers, or 66,906, lived in Queens in ‘09. Another 58,964 lived in Brooklyn, followed by 23,665 in the Bronx, 16,163 in Staten Island and 10,653 in Manhattan, according to the Building Congress. The construction trades accounted for 171,000 of the 233,359 industry positions based in New York City.

“New York City’s construction industry has been and remains a vital source of meaningful employment opportunities for recent immigrants and residents of all educational backgrounds,” Building Congress president Richard T. Anderson says in the report. “These data demonstrate the important role the industry plays, especially during periods of high unemployment for the City as a whole.”

However, Anderson adds that it’s “troubling” to consider that 53% of construction trades workers do not have health insurance. More than 80% of their white-collar counterparts in the industry, by contrast, are insured. “Given that the city’s trade unions provide such coverage to all members, this is an indication that those working at non-union sites are overwhelmingly going without such benefits,” Anderson says.

Perhaps offsetting the health-insurance divide between white-collar and trade employees is the greater likelihood of unemployment for workers with more education. The percentage of jobless college graduates was 17.5% in ’09, with a 20.5% unemployment rate for those with post-graduate degrees. Among workers with high school diplomas, the jobless rate in ’09 was 5.4%, notwithstanding a number of stalled construction projects citywide.

An even more lopsided statistic suggests that construction in New York City is still a man’s world. Ninety-nine percent of the industry’s overall workforce is male, states the report.

The division among age groups is a bit more evenly spread out. The Building Congress says 29% of the industry workforce is between ages 40 and 49; 27% are in their thirties, 19% are in their twenties; and 18% are in their fifties.

For recent immigrants, the industry remains an important source of work, according to the Building Congress report. Non-US citizens accounted for 41% of the total construction industry workforce here and 48% of all construction trades workers in New York City. Fifty-five percent speak a language other than English in their homes.

White Non-Hispanic men and women accounted for 96,417 of the 233,359 construction industry workers employed here in ‘09. Hispanics made up 84,958 of the total workforce, followed by black non-Hispanics at 30,818 and Asian workers at 18,886.

The Building Congress analysis is based on personal responses to the Census Bureau survey. It incorporates both union and non-union labor, as well as management positions, architects, engineers, office support and other service workers connected to the construction industry.