Roughly 115,000 construction job openings disappeared from the government’s accounting last month, suggesting the labor shortage that has dogged the construction sector is waning. The on-the-ground reality, however, indicates something else. 
Not only do workers remain in short supply, but so do new developments. The construction industry continues to busily work through its long backlog of projects, but new additions to the pipeline are coming less frequently. 
“The whole economy is in a holding pattern right now,” said Zack Fritz, an economist for the Associated Builders and Contractors. “Nobody’s quitting, nobody’s hiring, nobody’s doing layoffs. Projects aren’t going forward. They’re kind of…