Construction notably has had productivity losses since the 80s afaik.

Good call out, and an interesting case I was unaware of.

It looks like this is another facet of the "bitter medicine" that we're seeing around housing in general.

The first article that I saw pointed out that there is a correlation between productivity and regulation (of construction permitting etc). I would believe that because it has a corollary with "housing starts" (a measure of new construction) and its regional strength in the red/south portion of the country.