Posts Tagged ‘ConstructConnect’
Monday, November 6th, 2023
Article source: ConstructConnect
The latest Employment Situation Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics speaks of a +150,000 gain in the total number of U.S. jobs in October. That figure on its own is ho-hum. It is the second lowest monthly increase since pandemic days. (June of this year was weaker at +105,000).
The gain of +150,000 overstates the buoyancy. Versus the total jobs count of 156.874 million reported for September a month ago, October’s figure of 156.923 million was ahead by only +49,000 jobs. In the October report, September was revised down by -101,000 jobs.
The net result is that U.S. hiring is now as close to being flat as it has been in nearly three years.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, ConstructConnect, Construction, Economy, employ, employment, Growth, interest rate, recovery
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Tuesday, September 5th, 2023
Article source: ConstructConnect
The U.S. economy grew by +2.0% in the first quarter of this year and by +2.4% in the second quarter. Those figures are the month-to-month annualized percentage changes of ‘real’ (i.e., inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) dollars.
One should not, however, grow comfortable with the thought that all is well, and a slowdown or recession has been averted.
A key component of GDP is consumer spending, which is almost half comprised of retail sales. While total retail sales are not in deep distress, they are certainly not as buoyant as they were a year or so ago.
In fact, total current dollar retail sales have been flat for a year and a half (see Graph 1). On a year-over-year basis in the latest reported month, July 2023, they were +2.0%. With inflation still running over +3.0% y/y, the difference means ‘real’ total retail sales were slightly negative.
There is a wrinkle in this narrative. Total retail sales are being substantially suppressed by the weakness of receipts at gasoline stations, -20.8% y/y. Again, there is an inflation twist. The steep slide in petrol sales ties directly to a -19.9% y/y change in the price of gasoline, according to the latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) data set.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Construction, Construction industry, Construction services, Economic, Economist, employment, Growth, Housing, interest rate, lumber, material, recovery, steel, tenders
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Friday, September 10th, 2021
Article source: ConstructConnect
According to Statistics Canada, the Canadian total jobs count climbed by +90,000 in August to sit at just under 19 million. The year-over-year gain in employment has been only slightly under a million jobs (+958,000). Ontario (+419,000 jobs) and British Columbia (+201,000 jobs) have been the two provinces with the best records in nominal jobs creation over the past 12 months.
The Canadian seasonally adjusted (SA) unemployment rate downshifted to 7.1% in August from 7.5% in July and was a marked improvement over August 2020’s 10.2%. The not seasonally adjusted (NSA) unemployment rate, adjusted to the same calculation methodology as is adopted in the U.S., shrank to 5.8% from 6.2% in July and 9.0% in August a year ago. The R-3 U rate (i.e., its official title) was almost a match for the 5.3% NSA U rate rung up in the U.S. in August.
Some notable achievements were realized in Canada’s labour market in the latest month. The ‘total’ jobs recovery ratio in Canada, versus February-to-April’s huge drop last year, has now risen to 94.8%. But in ‘services’, and this is where breaking out the noisemakers is warranted, the jobs claw-back ratio has almost reached completion, 99.4%.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, ConstructConnect, Economic
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Wednesday, June 23rd, 2021
Article source: ConstructConnect
The ten graphs in this article update the latest housing starts information for the U.S. and Canada through May 2021. Both countries are currently experiencing new home building booms. Super low mortgage and secondary-financing interest rates, a build-up of savings while being locked down during the pandemic and the pronounced shift to working from home and escaping from crowded downtown cores have been some of the major contributors to the uptick in new accommodation demand.
U.S. housing ‘starts’ appear to have settled in around 1.6 million units per month, seasonally adjusted and annualized (SAAR). The Canadian monthly average seems to be about 270,000 units, although twice this year the number has risen much higher, 308,000 in January and 333,000 in March.
The case for saying the ‘boom’ has been stronger in Canada than in the U.S. can be made in simple fashion. Monthly average starts on a SAAR basis in the U.S. year to date (Jan-May 2021) are an impressive +22.5%. The comparable change for Canada, though, is an even more outstanding +48.3%.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, ConstructConnect, Construction, Economy, Housing, US
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Thursday, June 3rd, 2021
Article source: ConstructConnect
The economic world is full of odd connections these days. A case in point is the tie-in between airline travel and the price of lumber.
How can visiting Aunt Pat in Topeka have anything to do with needing a loan to purchase a two-by-four?
Graph 1 conveys very good news. U.S. airline passenger traffic, as measured by Transportation Security Administration (TSA) checkpoint numbers, is solidly on the rebound.
Over the latest 14 days ending June 1st, the number of people taking to the air has been 70% of what it was during the same time frame in 2019. While that still leaves considerable room for improvement, consider that for the same 14 days last year, the comparison with 2019 yielded a percentage level of just 12%.
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Tags: airline, Alex Carrick, construct connet, ConstructConnect, Construction, Construction industry, Economist, Economy, lumber
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Thursday, May 27th, 2021
Article source: ConstructConnect
Initial Jobless Claims and UI on Right Track
This article features a quick overview of the latest key statistics for the U.S. and Canadian economies, presented mainly in graph form.
For starters, U.S. initial jobless claims have finally dropped to a reasonable level, just above 400,000 for the week ending May 22nd. Prior to the pandemic, with the economy chugging along near full speed, initial jobless claims consistently sat between 200,000 and 300,000.
Therefore, once they fall below 300,000 again, there’ll be good reason to believe that a true return to ‘normal’ has been achieved.
The number of individuals receiving unemployment insurance is also trending down in a positive way. The latest weekly figure was 3.642 million, a falloff of nearly -100,000. In the best of times, the number is shy of two million.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Building Material, Canada, ConstructConnect, Construction, Construction industry, Economist, Economy, Housing
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Tuesday, May 25th, 2021
Article source: ConstructConnect
When presenting housing starts for the U.S. and Canada, the Census Bureau and CMHC first seasonally adjust monthly ‘actual’ units and then annualize them, to arrive at what are termed SAAR (seasonally adjusted and annualized) figures. ‘Annualizing’ takes the monthly number and projects it out over 12 months.
The January-April average of the four monthly SAAR figures for the U.S. so far this year is 1.594 million units, +18.2% when compared with January-April 2020’s average. Since the Fall of last year, a mini new housing construction boom has been underway in America.
Canada’s January-April average of monthly SAAR starts has been 295,700 units, +50.5% versus the comparable average managed in the first four months of last year. In Canada, the boom in residential groundbreakings isn’t speaking tentatively, rather it’s shouting.
Graph 1
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Construction, Economic, Housing, market
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Tuesday, May 4th, 2021
Article source: ConstructConnect
Below are the latest stock market results for key North American and international indices, all in standalone graphics form and as of closing April 30th.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Construction, Construction industry, developers, Economist, Economy, Growth
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Thursday, May 21st, 2020
U.S. Home Starts -45% since January; Canada, -24%
The story of the recent deterioration in U.S. and Canadian housing starts can best be told through a series of graphs.
Both nations began this year with relatively high levels of residential groundbreakings. In January 2020, the U.S. recorded 1.617 million units seasonally adjusted at an annual rate (SAAR) and Canada, 219,000 units (also SAAR).
The decline in new home starts in the U.S. during the latest two months, however, has been brutal. First, they shrank to 1.3 million units in March, then to 0.9 million in April.
New home starts in America in April were cut by nearly half (-45%) versus January.
Canada’s contraction, January to April, has been one-quarter. The 166,000-unit figure for Canada in the latest month, though, comes with an asterisk. Construction in Quebec was shut down in April, yielding housing start counts of zero throughout the province. (Never before has there been a non-existent official number for housing starts in Montreal in any month.)
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, ConstructConnect, Construction, Construction industry, Economic, Economist, Economy, Housing, residential
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Friday, May 8th, 2020
Article source: ConstructConnect
ConstructConnect, in its latest (Summer) quarterly construction starts forecast, is projecting -27.4% for 2020/2019 grand total dollars and -24.6% for square footage.
Why the big drop?
By the way, ‘real’ (inflation-adjusted) GDP is likely to be something like -6% (annual/annual) and that is a big decline. The Q/Q change annualized in Q2 will be something like -25% to -30%.
Put-in-place construction spend numbers are much smoother than starts. They include a large percentage of work that is carried over from last year, so they’re not relevant for assessing what is occurring today. The put-in-place total, 2020/2019, will be on the order of -6% to -8%.
Now we come to construction starts. As background, in the last recession (2008-2009), the cumulative decline in ConstructConnect’s total starts through both years was greater than -30%.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, construct, ConstructConnect, Construction, Construction industry, Construction services, Economist, Economy, employment
Comments Off on Why ConstructConnect is Forecasting a One-quarter Decline in U.S. Construction Starts This Year
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