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Concrete finishers

Official title Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers (SOC 47-2051)

Also called Cement mason, Concrete flatwork finisher, Concrete trowel operator, Paving finisher

In brief

In May 2025, BLS counted 206,170 US concrete finishers, with median pay of $57,020 a year. Of the BLS counts since 2003, the highest was 218,170, in May 2006. The earliest figure here is an estimate of 25,000 from 1900, not measured the same way as today's count. The last full technology era for concrete finishers: HIPERPAV and early concrete curing software, 1995 to 2015.

What the sources say

Official outlook

BLS projects employment to grow 1.6% from 2025 to 2035.

BLS Employment Projections 2025-35

AI exposure studies

Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. BLS publishes these counts as yearly survey snapshots and cautions against reading them as a precise trend. In May 2021 BLS changed how it estimates these counts (a model-based method using three years of survey data) and moved fully to the 2018 occupation codes, so part of a change across 2021 can come from the method rather than the work.

Last updated .

Cite this page
APA

Future History. (2026, October 11). Concrete finishers: jobs and pay since 1900 [Data set; data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35]. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/47-2051

Chicago

Future History. "Concrete finishers: jobs and pay since 1900." Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35. Last modified October 11, 2026. https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/47-2051.

BibTeX

@misc{futurehistory_47_2051, author = {{Future History}}, title = {Concrete finishers: jobs and pay since 1900}, year = {2026}, month = oct, howpublished = {\url{https://futurehistory.earth/timeline/47-2051}}, note = {Last updated 2026-10-11. Data as of BLS OEWS May 2025; BLS Employment Projections 2025-35}, }

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187519001925195019752000now
Country
2026
Known then as Cement Finisher / Plasterer in Cement (early Portland cement era)
Known then as Cement Mason / Cement Finisher (craft union era)
Known then as Cement Mason and Concrete Finisher (OPCMIA 1951 reorganization era)
Known then as Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers (BLS SOC 47-2051)
Known today as Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers (BLS SOC 47-2051)
Projected to still be called Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers (BLS SOC 47-2051)
Data from the May 2025 survey
US Employment
206K
Est.

Stated in source: BLS OEWS

Official statistic
Report an error
Median Annual Wage
$57,020
Est.

≈ $55,558 in 2024 prices (derived by us, CPI-adjusted)

Official statistic
Report an error
Beat · 1864

The National Plasterers' Union, predecessor to the Operative Plasterers' and Cement Masons' International Association, is formed during the American Civil War. It is the oldest building and construction trades union in the United States. The union initially covers plasterers working with lime-and-sand mixes; cement finishers are incorporated as a recognized craft specialty as Portland cement adoption spreads through the 1870s and 1880s.

Beat · 1913

The first concrete road in the United States is built in 1913, and the first ready-mix concrete delivery takes place in Baltimore, Maryland that same year. These two events together define a new category of outdoor concrete finishing work: paved road surfaces that require screeding, floating, and joint-cutting across continuous long sections. The road-paving specialization becomes one of the high-volume employment streams for cement masons through the mid-20th century.

Beat · 1935

The Hoover Dam is completed after pouring approximately 4.4 million cubic yards of concrete over five years (1930-1935). The dam represents the largest single concrete pour project in US history to that date and employs thousands of construction workers including finishing specialists who smooth and seal exposed concrete surfaces on dam faces, intake towers, and access roads. The dam required innovative concrete cooling techniques (embedded pipe systems circulating chilled water) to control heat of hydration in massive pours.

Beat · 1946

The OPCMIA establishes national apprenticeship training standards in partnership with the Contracting Plasterers' International Association and the Associated General Contractors, training significant numbers of World War II veterans in the cement mason trade. The program formalized what had previously been an informal journeyman-apprentice transmission of craft knowledge, bringing standardized curricula for mix-design fundamentals, tool use, safety, and flatwork specifications to union halls across the country.

Beat · 1956

June 29, 1956: President Eisenhower signs the Federal Aid Highway Act, authorizing $25 billion for 41,000 miles of interstate highways over 13 years. Portland concrete pavement was specified as the surface of choice for major highway segments, and the Act triggered an employment surge in cement finishing that lasted through the 1970s. The scale of the program was unprecedented: pouring and finishing thousands of miles of continuous concrete pavement required large crews of experienced masons working in coordinated long pours. The interstate program is the single largest driver of mid-century cement mason employment growth.

Beat · 1960

The OPCMIA reports membership of 62,772 with 42% of members working in the concrete industry. The union relocates its headquarters from Cleveland to the Washington DC area, reflecting the growing importance of federal infrastructure programs to its membership. By 1960 cement masons have become a numerically significant component of the construction workforce, distinct from and larger than the plasterer trade that originally gave birth to their union.

Beat · 1986

Richard L. Hilliard founds Somero Enterprises and introduces the first commercial Laser Screed, a machine that uses laser guidance to level large concrete slabs to flatness tolerances previously requiring highly experienced hand-screed crews. The laser screed transforms productivity on warehouse, industrial, and airport floor pours over the following decade, changing how large-slab work is staffed and priced. Somero's portfolio grows from one product in 1986 to thirteen products protected by 63 patents by the 2020s.

Beat · 2008

The financial crisis and housing collapse devastates construction employment. Cement masons and concrete finishers lost roughly 40% of employment between the 2007 peak and the 2010-2011 trough -- one of the sharpest sectoral contractions in any skilled craft -- as residential construction collapsed and commercial lending froze. The recovery from this trough was slow: it took until approximately 2016-2017 for employment to approach pre-crisis levels, and the extended downturn pushed many experienced masons permanently out of the trade into adjacent occupations.

How to read this number

OEWS is a point-in-time survey snapshot, not a continuous time series; BLS advises against using it for year-over-year trend comparison.

Each dot is a cited figure over time; the dotted line only links them (values between aren't measured). Hollow dots are estimates.

Official statistic: Copied by a script from a statistics agency table or a published study's table, not retyped by hand. BLS figures and the forecast and exposure tables are also re-checked against that table on every data run. Researched context: Researched from the cited source rather than copied from it by a script, so it is not machine-checked yet. Spot a mistake? Each figure has a “Report an error” link.

Cited forecasts · present → 2035

Will AI replace concrete finishers? What the research says

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, we show the disagreement rather than an average.

Each figure is stated by the named source; we publish no forecasts of our own. Where sources disagree, the spread is the honest signal.

What published forecasts say
Forecast change in the number of people doing this work, as published by each named source. Bars share one scale on every role, centred on zero and reaching the end at ±30%. Grey marks a small change, 3% or less either way.
BLS Employment Projections 2025-35
→ 2035
+1.6%
BLS National Employment Matrix, 2025-35 cycle, line for SOC 47-2051 (Cement masons and concrete finishers): 204.8 thousand jobs in 2025, projected 208.1 thousand in 2035, a change of +3.3 thousand (+1.6%). Matrix employment counts all jobs in the occupation, including self-employed workers (1.5% of this occupation in 2025). The average for all occupations in this cycle is +3.5%.
Official statisticReport an error
How exposed is this work to AI (research measures)
Scores as published by each study. Each row says what it measures. These measure what AI could technically do, not forecasts of jobs lost.
Eloundou et al. (2023), "GPTs are GPTs"
2023 study · Share of tasks exposed to LLMs (β, human-rated)
0%
of tasks
What this measures

Published occupation-level exposure from the paper's occ_level.csv for O*NET-SOC 47-2051.00 Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers. Shown: human-rated β = 0, the share of the occupation's tasks an LLM could do in at least half the time at equal quality, counting tasks that need LLM-powered software at half weight (β = E1 + 0.5 × E2). Other published measures for this occupation: human-rated α (LLM alone) 0 and γ (all LLM-assisted) 0; GPT-4-rated β 0. This measures how much of the work an LLM could touch, not how many jobs disappear.

Official statisticReport an error
Today, in this role

What's changing day to day for concrete finishers

Three parts of your work where AI is already doing real lifting, and what stays yours.

AI is sitting alongside you hereEstimate concrete quantities, labor hours, and material costs for bid proposals, reading plan sets and translating dimensions into volume, crew size, and equipment needs.

Estimate concrete quantities, labor hours, and material costs for bid proposals, reading plan sets and translating dimensions into volume, crew size, and equipment needs.[6],[7]

Tools picking this up
Where your edge is

Learn AI-assisted takeoff tools (Togal.AI) to generate quantity estimates from PDF drawings in minutes; use the saved time for scope review and subcontractor coordination.

AI is sitting alongside you hereOperate a ride-on laser screed machine for large-slab warehouse or industrial-floor pours, programming grade controls and adjusting head speed and screed angle to meet FF/FL flatness specifications.

Operate a ride-on laser screed machine for large-slab warehouse or industrial-floor pours, programming grade controls and adjusting head speed and screed angle to meet FF/FL flatness specifications.[8],[9]

Where your edge is

Earn factory operator certification on laser screed models; machine-augmented masons who run the equipment earn more and are more competitive on large commercial projects.

AI is sitting alongside you hereMonitor ambient temperature, wind speed, and humidity throughout a pour and adjust curing methods (wet burlap, curing compound, windbreaks) in real time to prevent plastic-shrinkage cracks.

Monitor ambient temperature, wind speed, and humidity throughout a pour and adjust curing methods (wet burlap, curing compound, windbreaks) in real time to prevent plastic-shrinkage cracks.[1],[10]

Tools picking this up
Where your edge is

Use HIPERPAV or site weather apps to pre-model curing windows before the pour; combine software predictions with on-site judgment for non-standard mixes.

Where concrete finishers go next

Natural next steps for someone with your foundation: not exits, evolutions.

What each move takes

A direction you could grow

Construction Managers

Senior cement masons and superintendents with multi-project experience can transition to construction manager roles, particularly in concrete-intensive sectors (infrastructure, tilt-up, data centers); a construction management degree or Associate Degree adds significant leverage, though proven field experience substitutes on many projects.

What you'd add
  • · Construction project management software (Procore, Autodesk Build)
  • · Budget and contract administration
  • · Subcontractor procurement and scope negotiation
  • · Associate or bachelor degree in Construction Management (or equivalent certificate)
  • · PMP or CCM certification
What it takesA real upskill, but a natural one
Tools of the era

How has the work of concrete finishers changed since 1870?

The tools that defined the work, one line per era. Select an era to see how it reshaped the work.

  • Hand tools only: bull float, darby, margin trowel, groover (pre-power era)

    The cement mason's toolkit from the 1870s through the 1920s consisted entirely of hand tools: a bull float (a large, long-handled float for initial leveling), darbies (shorter float-bars for secondary leveling), margin trowels, edgers, groovers for control joints, and the steel finishing trowel that gave the trade its character. Every square foot of concrete was worked by hand, with the finisher reading the surface continuously to judge the right moment for each pass. The art of the craft lived in timing and touch; no instrument told the mason when to start the second trowel pass. On road jobs, long-handled screeds pulled by two workers struck off slabs between forms. The only machine on site was the mixer drum, which delivered the concrete; everything after placement was human labor.

  • Transit mix truck and early mechanized screed (ready-mix revolution)

    The first transit mixer concept arrived in the United States in 1926, and by 1930 the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association had formed to serve the growing industry of off-site batching and truck delivery. By 1941 hundreds of ready-mix plants operated in hundreds of US cities. The impact on finishing work was structural: instead of mixing on site in small batches that arrived with variable composition, finishers now received consistently proportioned concrete in larger volumes from a single drum. This allowed longer uninterrupted pours and required better coordination between the delivery driver and the finishing crew. The 1930s also brought the first commercial motorized vibrators for consolidating concrete around rebar, reducing the hand-rodding labor that had been standard. Air-entraining agents (1930) improved freeze-thaw resistance and reduced the water-cement ratio, which changed the workability window and how finishers planned their passes.

    Effect on the work

    Ready-mix delivery concentrated the batching workforce in plants and increased the productivity of site-based finishing crews by eliminating on-site mixing labor. A well-coordinated crew could now finish significantly larger areas in a shift than the mixed-on-site era allowed.

  • Gas-powered walk-behind power trowel (mechanized finishing begins)

    Gasoline-powered walk-behind trowel machines began entering widespread use on US job sites in the late 1940s and through the 1950s, transforming how large slabs were finished. Where hand-troweling a warehouse floor once required many finishers working on hands and knees for hours, a power trowel operator could cover far more area with each pass. The machines were particularly transformative on industrial and commercial pours: factory floors, warehouses, airport aprons, and highway paving. Yet they did not displace the skilled finisher; they required one. A poorly timed pass with a power trowel burns the surface, burns in chatter marks, or traps bleed water. The operator had to read the concrete continuously, adjusting blade pitch and rotation speed as the slab stiffened. The hands-and-knees finish trowel pass remained necessary for edges and detail work that the spinning machine could not reach.

  • Laser screed (Somero Enterprises, first commercial unit 1986)

    In 1983, Dave Somero sketched a concept for a machine that could level large concrete slabs using laser guidance. By September 1985 a prototype was ready, and in 1986 Richard L. Hilliard founded Somero Enterprises to manufacture the machine commercially. The first Laser Screed was genuinely new: it used a rotating laser transmitter to establish a reference elevation plane, a laser receiver on the screed head to measure deviation in real time, and an automated hydraulic system to raise or lower the screed to maintain grade. For the first time, a large slab could be struck off to within flatness tolerances that previously required highly experienced crews and multiple passes. The impact on the craft was significant but not simple: laser screeds raised productivity on large flat-slab pours dramatically, but they required a skilled operator who understood concrete behavior, machine calibration, and the limits of what laser guidance could and could not do. The machine created a new specialist rather than eliminating the old one.

    Effect on the work

    Laser screeds reduced the crew size required for large-slab screeding operations from three to five workers doing manual strike-off to one machine operator plus a smaller finishing crew. Productivity gains on warehouse and industrial floors were substantial, but the savings came primarily in screeding labor, not finishing labor.

  • HIPERPAV and early concrete curing software (pavement engineering tools reach job sites)

    HIPERPAV (High-Performance Paving), developed under Federal Highway Administration sponsorship and first released commercially in the mid-1990s, was the first widely adopted software tool for predicting early-age cracking risk in concrete pavement. By entering mix design, joint spacing, curing method, and weather forecast data, a pavement engineer or experienced mason foreman could model the optimal saw-cut timing window before the pour rather than relying on rules of thumb. Earlier saw cuts prevented random cracking but risked raveling green concrete; later cuts were safer structurally but might miss the prevention window. HIPERPAV's main effect on finishing work was to shift risk management upstream into planning: by the 2000s, highway and airfield concrete crews on major projects ran HIPERPAV-style models routinely, reducing costly random cracking on high-specification pours.

  • Ride-on power trowels, decorative concrete systems, and AI-assisted estimating (current era)

    The current tool era is defined by three overlapping advances. First, large ride-on power trowels (some up to rotor span) allow a single operator to finish thousands of square feet per shift on flat industrial floors, compressing finishing labor on large commodity pours. Second, the decorative concrete segment has grown into a distinct specialty: polished concrete floors, stamped patterns, acid staining, exposed-aggregate reveals, and colored overlays require artisan skills and product knowledge that command a significant wage premium over basic flatwork. Third, AI-assisted takeoff tools (Togal.AI and peers) automate the quantity estimation task from PDF drawings, freeing estimators and experienced masons from manual area calculations. None of these three shifts eliminate the need for a skilled finisher; they change the premium-value tasks and raise the ceiling on earnings for masons who master them.

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Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers employment and pay by year

On record since1870
Latest US employment206,170 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Latest US median pay$57,020 (May 2025)Source: BLS OEWS May 2025Official statisticReport an error
Outlook+1.6% by 2035Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-35Official statisticReport an error

In other countries

The latest figure each country's statistics agency publishes for this job. Each uses its own occupation definition, survey basis and currency, so the numbers are not directly comparable with each other or with the US figures.

  • Canada (NOC 73100)

    Employment, 2020
    8,785, Statistics Canada Census 2021 Official statistic Report an errorStatistics Canada Census of Population 2021: number of persons with employment income in NOC 73100 Concrete finishers, Canada, reference year 2020. A recipients basis (anyone with employment income during the year), slightly broader than a point-in-time employed count. Statistics Canada Open Licence.
    Median pay, 2020
    C$64,000, Statistics Canada Census 2021 Official statistic Report an errorStatistics Canada Census of Population 2021 (Table 98-10-0586): median employment income for NOC 73100 Concrete finishers, Canada, reference year 2020, full-year full-time workers (the basis comparable to the US OEWS full-time median). Statistics Canada Open Licence.
View all 28 years of cited US data, each linked to its source
YearUS employmentAnnual pay (median unless marked)SourceReport
190025,000n/aEst., Grounded in Concrete Researched contextReport
194080,000n/aEst., Smart Construction Guide Researched contextReport
1960140,000$5,200Est., AFL-CIO Researched contextReport
1985175,000n/aEst., BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook Researched contextReport
2000190,000n/aEst., O*NET 47-2051.00 Researched contextReport
2003180,540$30,780BLS OEWS May 2003 Official statisticReport
2004191,690$31,400BLS OEWS May 2004 Official statisticReport
2005204,720$32,030BLS OEWS May 2005 Official statisticReport
2006218,170$32,650BLS OEWS May 2006 Official statisticReport
2007213,850$33,840BLS OEWS May 2007 Official statisticReport
2008201,730$35,080BLS OEWS May 2008 Official statisticReport
2009165,700$35,440BLS OEWS May 2009 Official statisticReport
2010140,950$35,450BLS OEWS May 2010 Official statisticReport
2011135,330$35,600BLS OEWS May 2011 Official statisticReport
2012135,200$35,760BLS OEWS May 2012 Official statisticReport
2013141,910$36,130BLS OEWS May 2013 Official statisticReport
2014152,570$36,760BLS OEWS May 2014 Official statisticReport
2015163,360$37,740BLS OEWS May 2015 Official statisticReport
2016173,920$39,180BLS OEWS May 2016 Official statisticReport
2017178,640$40,650BLS OEWS May 2017 Official statisticReport
2018186,400$43,000BLS OEWS May 2018 Official statisticReport
2019196,120$44,810BLS OEWS May 2019 Official statisticReport
2020195,580$46,000BLS OEWS May 2020 Official statisticReport
2021186,600$47,340BLS OEWS May 2021 Official statisticReport
2022196,730$48,300BLS OEWS May 2022 Official statisticReport
2023203,560$50,720BLS OEWS May 2023 Official statisticReport
2024205,230$54,660BLS OEWS May 2024 Official statisticReport
2025206,170$57,020BLS OEWS May 2025 Official statisticReport
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