Article source: ConstructConnect

ConstructConnect announced today that May construction starts, excluding residential activity, were +5% versus April. The modest rise fell a little short of the usual percentage change between April and May, due to seasonality, of +8%.

Versus May of last year, nonresidential starts in the fifth month of this year were +2.0%.

Compared with January through May of last year, the year-to-date volume of starts in 2017 has been +1.9%.

The starts figures throughout this report are not seasonally adjusted (NSA). Nor are they altered for inflation. They are expressed in what are termed ‘current’ as opposed to ‘constant’ dollars.

‘Nonresidential building’ plus ‘engineering/civil’ work accounts for a considerably larger share of total construction than residential activity. The former’s combined proportion of total put-in-place construction in the Census Bureau’s April report was 56%; the latter’s was 44%.

ConstructConnect’s construction starts are leading indicators for the Census Bureau’s capital investment or put-in-place series. Also, the reporting period for starts (i.e., May 2017) is one month ahead of the reporting period for the investment series (i.e., April 2017.)
(more…)