AECCafe: The AEC Lens

The AEC Lens

Archive for December, 2019

9 Mid-December Economic Nuggets

Thursday, December 19th, 2019

(1) U.S. GDP Growth in Q3 Similar to Q2 and Slower than in Q1

With private investment, particularly in nonresidential structures, and net exports of goods and services acting as drags, U.S. ‘real’ (i.e., adjusted-for-inflation) gross domestic product (GDP) growth turned in a relatively quiet performance in 2019’s Q3, +2.1% annualized. The +2.1% result was the tiniest bit better than Q2’s +2.0% but was a slowing from Q1’s +3.1%.

9 Mid-December Economic Nuggets Graphic Personal consumption expenditures (PCE), which now account for more than two-thirds of GDP, continued to rise faster than total output in Q3 (i.e., +2.9% for PCE versus +2.1% for GDP), but the margin of difference diminished considerably from the previous quarter (i.e., in Q2, PCE was +4.6% to GDP’s +2.0%).

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November’s Jobs Reports – U.S. Still Upbeat; Canada Suffers Setback

Monday, December 9th, 2019

Article source: ConstructConnect

November’s U.S. employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) records a net increase in the nation’s jobs count of +266,000. Such a large gain, however, is somewhat distorted by a +54,000 increase in manufacturing jobs that comes on the heels of a -43,000 decline the month before. The big swing from one month to the next was mostly due to the onset of the strike at General Motors in October, followed by resolution four weeks later.

November’s Jobs Reports – U.S. Still Upbeat; Canada Suffers Setback Graphic

Therefore, the number carrying more significance for November’s jobs picture is the impressive uptick in private services-providing jobs, +206,000. While the average monthly increase in total jobs in America to date this year has been +180,000, down from +223,000 through the same January-November period of last year (i.e., -19%), the pullback in ‘services’ jobs has been far less severe, +149,000 compared with +161,000 (i.e., -7%).

Both the seasonally adjusted (SA) and not seasonally adjusted (NSA) unemployment rates stayed extremely tight in the latest reporting month, 3.5% and 3.3% respectively. The SA rate was down from 3.6% in October; the NSA rate was the same as in October.

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The U.S. Jobs Story and Ghosts of Recessions Past

Friday, December 6th, 2019

Article source: ConstructConnect

Total Jobs Level Relegates Dark Days to Past

The U.S. economy has been so outstanding at creating jobs over the past ten years that now is a good time to stand back and assess where, among industries, the pickup has been most remarkable and whether there are currently signs of general easing.

The U.S. Jobs Story and Ghosts of Recessions Past Graphic The top half of Graph 1 sets out the level of U.S. total employment from January 2000 to the present. The rectangles of gray shading highlight the last two slowdowns – i.e., the dot-com setback in Q2 and Q3 of 2001 and the Great Recession running from Q1 2008 through Q2 2009. The downturns in employment during those time frames is quite evident in both the upper and lower portions of the chart.

What’s also readily apparent, however, is how the past-20-years period, from a number-of-jobs point of view, has split into distinct decades. Total employment at the end of 2009 was slightly less than it was in January 2000. By way of contrast, from January 2010 on, the jobs count has done nothing but ascend.

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