Posts Tagged ‘CMDGroup’
Monday, March 7th, 2016
Article source: CMDGroup
A significant milestone has just been reached in the U.S. labor market. For the latest week ending February 27th, America’s initial jobless claims figure was less than 300,000 for the 52nd week in a row.
That’s a whole year of strong success in keeping the number of people newly unemployed quite low. (In the Great Recession of 2008-2009, the number topped off at 670,000.)
Falling below their 300,000 benchmark level, rosy initial jobless claims automatically imply encouraging news from the Employment Situation Report published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The BLS has just reported that in February, the total number of jobs in the U.S. rose by 242,000, where a gain of 200,000 or more is considered bullish.
The national unemployment rate stayed below 5.0% at 4.9%, the same as in January. A year ago, it had been 5.5%.
In another positive sign, the proportion of working-age people who actively sought employment in February moved a little higher, to 62.9%. This measure is called the ‘participation rate’ and it usually picks up when job prospects are good.
(On the flip side, when job prospects are abysmal, people stop looking for work and the result is a ‘discouraged worker’ effect.)
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, CMD, CMDGroup, Economy, employ, employment, Great Recession, job, Labor, market, US
Comments Off on U.S. Economy Adds Nearly One-quarter of a Million Jobs in February
Thursday, March 3rd, 2016
Article source: CMDGroup
Okay, I admit it, I’m flummoxed.
I’m supposed to be writing about the economy, but how can I stay focused in the midst of a U.S. presidential election campaign.
Voting day may still be eight months away, in November, but there are distractions galore in the surround-sound coverage of the primaries and caucuses.
The economy has become a side-show event compared with what is going on in the electoral center ring.
Over the past decade-plus, the differences between the Democrats and Republicans have become deeper and more firmly entrenched.
Positions on the left and right have turned inflexible. Celebrity commentators in the media have played roles in marshalling legions of strident supporters.
Policy stances have proven intractable, yielding gridlock in Washington.
The crop that’s now being harvested is a disdain for politics as normally practiced.
Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton has been hard pressed to establish a lead over her rival, Bernie Sanders, a man who doesn’t hesitate to label himself a socialist.
On the Republican side, the candidacy of Donald Trump was supposed to peter out by last September, according to almost all the pundits.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, CMD, CMDGroup, Economy, election, Hillary, market, money, presidential, stock, Trump, US, vote
Comments Off on That’s Not How Things are Usually Done
Saturday, February 27th, 2016
Article source: CMDGroup
The multi-family market is where the excitement is to be found in the U.S. and Canadian city housing starts markets.
Table 6 shows some strikingly large percentage gains in multi-family starts from 2014 to 2015, with New York (+109.6%) – already busting at the seams with high-rise towers – more than doubling its annual volume of groundbreakings.
Miami (+60.4%) and Dallas-Fort Worth (+54.4%) recorded year-over-year multi-unit starts increases that were ahead by more than half. While Miami has staged a nice recovery (to 16,000 units in 2015) in multi-unit starts since its disastrous level (only 1,600 units) in the Great Recession year of 2009, it still remains considerably below its 15-year previous best figure of 23,300 units in 2005.
Dallas, on the other hand, in 2015 (28,000 multi-family units) shot well past its prior most stellar year (18,400 units in 2008).
Boston (+42.5%), Los Angeles (+34.2%) and San Francisco (+30.5%), in 2015, had multi-family starts levels that were close to or better than one-third higher than in 2014.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, CMD, CMDGroup, Housing, market, multi-family, US
Comments Off on Latest Annual U.S. and Canadian City Housing Starts (Parts 3)
Friday, February 26th, 2016
Article source: CMDGroup
In the previous Economy at a Glance, there was an examination of ‘total’ housing starts in the largest urban centers in the U.S. and Canada.
2015 ‘actuals’ and year-over-year percent changes were laid out in two tables for 12 cities south of the border and six on the northern side.
The figures are being called ‘starts’, although for the U.S. centers they are actually derived from residential building permits.
The city definitions are based on broad boundaries that include downtown cores and nearby suburbs with close commuting ties.
In this current EAAG, the focus will be narrowed to the single-family market.
Nation-wide in the U.S., single-family starts are now accounting for about two-thirds of total starts, with multiples making up the other 33%. (In Canada last year, the proportions were the reverse, 35% for singles and 65% for multiples.)
The share in the U.S. taken by ‘singles’ has dropped dramatically over the past several years. A decade ago, it wasn’t uncommon for singles to be as much as 80% of total starts.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, CMD, CMDGroup, Housing, market, single-family, US
Comments Off on Latest Annual U.S. and Canadian City Housing Starts (Parts 2)
Thursday, February 25th, 2016
Article source: CMDGroup
Based on the latest ‘actuals’ from Statistics Canada, the spring 2016 forecasts, out to 2019, of construction capital spending − also known as put-in-place investment – have just been calculated by CanaData.
Versus the fall of 2015, the year-over-year projections have mostly been scaled back.
Grand total constant dollar (i.e., adjusted for inflation) construction will decline a further 3.1% in 2016 after a drop of 3.4% in 2015. 2017 will see a slight improvement of +1.0%, followed by +3.5% in 2018 and +4.3% in 2019.
In the fall of last year, the comparable percentage changes were: 2015, -2.2%; 2016, +0.5%; 2017, +2.7%; and 2018, +4.1%. There was no 2019 forecast at that time.
In current dollars, 2015’s grand total was $285 billion, or -2.4% compared with $292 billion in 2014.
After a further 1.8% decline in this current year, 2016 will chalk up a volume of slightly less than $280 billion.
Current dollar gains of 2.9% and 5.6% in 2017 and 2018 respectively will finally lift the total dollar value of all Canadian put-in-place construction activity above $300 billion two years from now.
(more…)
Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, CMD, CMDGroup, Construction, dollar, Economic, Economy, US
Comments Off on Canadian Put-in-place Construction Forecasts: Spring 2016 Edition (Part 1)
Wednesday, February 24th, 2016
Article source: CMDGroup
This Economy at a Glance (EAAG) will look at home starts in major U.S. and Canadian cities, according to ‘totals’ (Part 1), plus single-family (Part 2) and multi-family (Part 3) markets.
The accompanying tables rank the dozen American and half-dozen Canadian cities by actual start levels in 2015 and year-over-year percent changes.
For both the U.S. and Canada, the cities are the broad designations (MSAs and CMAs) which include downtown cores plus all suburbs with close live-work commuting ties.
The website versions of these three articles include a wealth of graphs, since it is often true that a picture is worth a thousand words.
Nevertheless, here’s commentary on total new home groundbreakings in the 18 major cities.
In the U.S., the monster-sized market for total housing starts in 2015, at 86,400 units, was New York.
Two cities in Texas, Houston (56,900) and Dallas-Fort Worth (56,400), were in second and third places respectively, but way back.
Los Angeles (33,700) and Atlanta (30,000) placed fourth and fifth.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, CMD, CMDGroup, Housing, market, single-family, US
Comments Off on Latest Annual U.S. and Canadian City Housing Starts (Parts 1)
Friday, January 29th, 2016
Article source: CMDGroup
Following up on the subject of Canadian construction material costs, this Economy at a Glance concentrates on seven graphs.
Graph 1: Softwood lumber prices in Canada rose rapidly throughout 2012, but over the past three years, they have stayed mainly flat. The U.S.-Canada softwood lumber agreement (SLA), after being in effect for nine years, was allowed to expire in October of last year.
Participants in Canada wanted to see continuation of the SLA under the same terms as originally negotiated. The U.S. industry has been wishing for a re-calibration of provisions.
Under the SLA, quotas and/or export taxes were to be imposed on Canadian producers when prices fell below a benchmark range. Individual provinces were allowed to choose their own form of regulation. Additional disputes were argued on several occasions before the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA).
Without the SLA, as shown by the long history of contentious wrangling prior to its 2006 implementation, there is considerable potential for legal action that will disrupt North American lumber markets. (more…)
Tags: Alex Carrick, architect, build, Canada, CMD, CMDGroup, construct, material
Comments Off on Canada’s Construction Material Costs Tell Diverse Stories (Part 2 of 2)
Tuesday, January 26th, 2016
Article source: CMDGroup
Similar to the U.S., the price advances of many materials and building products going into the construction process in Canada remain restrained.
The +0.3% figure year-over-year (y/y) for total construction − from line 4 of accompanying Table 1 − does, however, incorporate considerable variation at the type-of-structure sub-category level.
At this time, a sizable gain in non-residential building material costs (+3.6% y/y), plus a mid-range increase in residential costs (+2.2% y/y), are being offset by a significant decline in engineering/civil costs (-3.2% y/y).
The divergent performances result primarily from: 1) demand/supply factors driven by activity levels in each of the three main type-of-structure sub-categories; and 2) different weightings of material inputs to build houses versus office buildings versus roads and highways.
The material composition of residential construction has a large forestry component, although domestic lumber prices are also affected by housing starts south of the border.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, build, Canada, CMD, CMDGroup, construct, manufacture, material
Comments Off on Canada’s Construction Material Costs Tell Diverse Stories (Part 1 of 2)
Monday, January 25th, 2016
Article source: CMDGroup
The cost of construction is largely determined by labor and material inputs.
The previous Economy at a Glance studied U.S. year-over-year average hourly wages in construction relative to all private sector jobs and other major industries.
Expanding the analysis somewhat, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in its monthly Employment Situation report, publishes four series on wage rates. Table B3 records average hourly and average weekly earnings for all employees in a range of industries. Table B8 has similar average hourly and weekly earnings information, but only for production and non-supervisory personnel.
For construction, the December 2015 year-over-year results were +2.9% (average hourly) and +4.2% (average weekly) from Table B3 and +2.7% (average hourly) and +3.3% (average weekly) from Table B8.
To summarize, the earnings results for construction ranged from +2.7% to +4.2% annually.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, architect, build, CMD, CMDGroup, Construction, cost, Labor, material, US, wage
Comments Off on Now it’s the Turn of U.S. Construction Material Costs
Friday, January 22nd, 2016
Article source: CMDGroup
At the end of 2010, the unemployment rate in the United States was 9.3%.
Five years later, as of December 2015, the national jobless figure has been cut nearly in half, to stand at 5.0%.
There’s a common lament being heard that the tightening in U.S. labor markets has been overstated because a large bloc of potential workers has given up hunting for a job.
Furthermore, so the argument goes, whatever employment improvement has happened isn’t yet leading to better wages and salaries and the economy won’t really build up a head of steam until workers are being paid more, so they can spend more.
This Economy at a Glance will look at the percentage changes of year-over-year average hourly earnings for both production and supervisory workers in the private sector as a whole, and for major industrial sectors. Historical data can be readily downloaded from the web site of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
In the hopes of finding trend lines, the analysis in this EAAG will be limited to the past five years.
(more…)
Tags: Alex Carrick, architect, build, CMD, CMDGroup, Construction, Economic, finance, jobs, market, money
Comments Off on U.S. Wage Gains: Construction versus other Major Industrial Sectors
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