Masonry and concrete

O*NET divides the trade into three occupations: brickmasons and blockmasons, who lay and bind brick, structural tile, concrete block and similar units with mortar; stonemasons, who build stone structures such as piers, walls and abutments; and cement masons and concrete finishers, who smooth and finish poured concrete and cut its expansion joints.

Masonry is the trade with the most continuous hand-tool lineage in this archive. The brickmason’s core tasks in O*NET still name the plumb bob, the level, the line strung from corner to corner, the trowel edge and the hammer for cutting units, and jointing tools for finishing mortar joints. The concrete finisher’s tasks name rakes, shovels, hand or power trowels, hand or power screeds and floats. O*NET records 120, 117 and 143 tool commodities for the three occupations.

O*NET OnLine, the occupational database of the US Department of Labor, reports for Brickmasons and Blockmasons (47-2021.00), 62,400 people in 2025, a median wage of $29.87 an hour ($62,120 a year), projected growth for 2025–2035 described as slower than average (1% to 2%), and 4,100 projected job openings; for Stonemasons (47-2022.00), 9,300 people in 2025, a median wage of $27.59 an hour ($57,390 a year), projected growth for 2025–2035 described as decline (-1% or lower), and 500 projected job openings; for Cement Masons and Concrete Finishers (47-2051.00), 204,800 people in 2025, a median wage of $27.41 an hour ($57,020 a year), projected growth for 2025–2035 described as slower than average (1% to 2%), and 13,600 projected job openings.