Article source: ConstructConnect
Construction spending in various type-of structure categories is driven by economic circumstances within specific industrial subsectors. For example, manufacturers set the pace in industrial construction.
Good health in the leisure and hospitality sector provides the backing for new hotel and motel work. And jobs levels in information and financial services, as well as in more rapidly expanding fields of endeavor such as computer systems and design services, establish the need for additional office space and commercial tower square footage. (See, “Shifts in Office Jobs and Implications for Commercial Tower Construction.”)
This article is the second in a series of seven that examines key industrial sectors to determine where they are most prominent regionally. Rankings of state strength in each industrial subsector are based on both ‘weight’ and ‘concentration’ of relevant employment. ‘Weight’ is simply the number of jobs in the industrial subsector in each state. ‘Concentration’ is each state’s number of jobs in the subsector divided by the state’s population. In effect, it’s a ‘per capita’ figure, except that it’s expressed as number of jobs per million population.
By ‘weight’, the states with the largest populations are almost always high in the rankings. The rankings by ‘concentration’, however, often deliver a jolt of surprise or two.
