Heavy and civil construction

Heavy and civil construction is a reference-only trade in this archive: its machines are documented because they are part of the material culture of building, but they are not sold or kitted. O*NET’s operating engineers and other construction equipment operators run motor graders, bulldozers, scrapers, compressors, pumps, derricks, shovels, tractors and front-end loaders to excavate, move and grade earth, erect structures, or pour concrete and pavement.

The operator’s core tasks in O*NET begin with safety: learning and following safety regulations and avoiding utility lines, other equipment, other workers and falling objects. O*NET records 147 tool commodities for the occupation. The trade’s hand tools (shovel, pick, digging bar, sledgehammer) are the same ones its machines were built to replace, and the archive documents both ends of that line.

O*NET OnLine, the occupational database of the US Department of Labor, reports for Operating Engineers and Other Construction Equipment Operators (47-2073.00), 489,500 people in 2025, a median wage of $28.78 an hour ($59,850 a year), projected growth for 2025–2035 described as faster than average (5% to 6%), and 39,200 projected job openings.