NEW YORK CITY—The city's construction sector, which was battered during the recession, has recovered to a level where industry employment in Q1 came in at the second highest level in a quarter century, according to a new report.

The New York Building Congress states that in 2014 private sector construction employment in New York City rose by a 4.5% clip as compared to a year earlier and was 10% higher than employment totals in 2012. The Building Congress report was based on an analysis of New York State Department of Labor employment statistics.

Construction employment rose slightly in the first quarter of 2015, with 121,200 private sector jobs compared to 119,600 jobs in the first three months of 2014. This year's first quarter employment total was the second highest in the last 25 years, bested only by the 128,300 jobs produced in the first quarter of 2008.