The AEC Lens Posts Tagged ‘ConstructConnect’With U.S. Tariffs on Chinese ‘Parts’, Advantage Goes to Canada in Auto Sector InvestmentsFriday, September 21st, 2018Article source: ConstructConnect The Trump Administration in Washington has recently imposed $200 billion in tariffs on imports from China. Included in those new duty assessments are auto parts. This action, along with another key development in Mexico, has introduced a strange twist into the dynamics of where, in North America, motor vehicle assemblers may wish to carry out future capital spending.
ConstructConnect’s August Nonresidential Starts -19% M/M, But Only -2% YTDThursday, September 13th, 2018Article source: ConstructConnect ConstructConnect announced today that August’s volume of construction starts, excluding residential activity, was $33.1 billion − a month-to-month change of -18.9%. The long-term history of the starts data records a ‘normal’ change of -3.5% from July to August, due to seasonality. (Starts are traditionally strongest in Spring and early Summer.)
Compared with August of last year, this year’s latest-month nonresidential starts volume was -9.5%. Relative to the nonresidential five-year average for August, from 2013 through 2017, this year’s latest-month starts volume was +2.7%. Year-to-date nonresidential starts in 2018 compared with the same January-August time frame of 2017 have 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 larger share of total construction than residential activity. The former’s combined proportion of total put-in-place construction in the Census Bureau’s July report was 55%; the latter’s share was 45%.
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., August 2018) is one month ahead of the reporting period for the investment series (i.e., July 2018.) The all-jobs increase for the U.S. economy in August was +1.6% year over year, according to the latest Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Hiring by the construction sector has been more robust, +4.3% year over year. The month-to-month nominal jobs increase in construction in August was +23,000, the same as the average monthly gain since the beginning of this year. Construction hiring on average for January-August 2018 is up by one-third versus 2017’s +18,000 monthly average for the first two-thirds of 2017. Construction’s current unemployment rate is 3.4%, the same as in July, but down from 4.7% in August 2017. Construction’s jobless rate is lower than the ‘headline’ figure for the whole economy, 3.9%. Equity Price Patterns of 39 Companies with Ties to ConstructionTuesday, August 21st, 2018Article source: ConstructConnect There’s nothing complicated about today’s article. It simply examines, with the aid of the accompanying table, the latest 12-month performances of the share prices of nearly 40 well-known companies.
The 39 firms have been arranged alphabetically according to their primary industrial activity. Not all sectors are represented. One obvious omission is ‘health care’. CVS and Walgreens-Boots under ‘General Retail’ will have to serve as proxies. But there has been an attempt to capture companies with direct or indirect (i.e., through capital spending on manufacturing facilities, retail space, etc.) ties to construction. For each company, the two right-hand, percentage-change columns compare the current share price with: (1) the latest 12-month low; and (2) the latest 12-month high. With respect to 12-month lows, percentage changes that are 50.0% or more have been shaded lightly in gray. With respect to 12-month highs, percentage changes that are -20.0% or more steeply negative have been shaded in red. 12 Mid-August Economic NuggetsMonday, August 20th, 2018Article source: ConstructConnect The U.S. quarter-to-quarter annualized advance in gross domestic product (GDP) in the second quarter of this year was an outsized +4.1%. It was the fastest leap forward since 2014’s third quarter jump of +4.9%. Some of the strength has been attributed to exports that were shipped early to beat target dates for the imposition of tariffs.
Nevertheless, it’s fair to say that America’s economy is presently firing smoother on more cylinders than it has in a long time. And even when problems do crop up, such as a potential Turkish currency crisis, they are – to all outward appearances − being dealt with and hustled aside quickly. The foregoing is not to imply that there are no nagging points of concern. After all, inflation is shaking off its long slumber and preparing to possibly initiate trouble. The all-items Consumer Price Index (CPI) in July was +2.9% year over year. Even the ‘core’ rate (+2.4%), which omits volatile food and energy components, exceeded the +2.0% level favored by the Federal Reserve. Manufacturing and Construction Both Winners in U.S. July Jobs ReportFriday, August 3rd, 2018Article source: ConstructConnect The lead paragraph of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)’s July Employment Situation report highlights that total nonfarm payroll employment in the U.S. rose by 157,000 jobs during the latest month.
And that the unemployment rate declined again to 3.9% from 4.0% in June. The lowest the unemployment rate has reached in this cycle was 3.8% two months ago, in May. Historically, the U.S. unemployment rate never falls much lower. The last time it was 3.8% was in April of 2000. Eighteen years have passed since then. The seasonally adjusted (SA) unemployment rate through the first seven months of this year has averaged 4.0%. During the same time frame of last year, it was 4.5%. Disconnect Between High-tech’s Influence and the High-tech Sector’s Jobs CreationWednesday, August 1st, 2018Article source: ConstructConnect Computers, the Internet and other high-tech advances have profoundly affected the workaday lives of every one of us. Many of the thought-leaders who have sparked the innovation waves have become celebrities beyond the confines of the business sector. And their companies have been richly rewarded through enormous increases in the value of their shares on the major stock markets. Never mind that Netflix and Facebook have recently had some setbacks, the FAANG companies (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google), along with many others (Twitter, Uber), have soared in value over the past decade-plus. We’ve been living through a new industrial revolution. But there has long been one quibble raised by economists and others about these transformative times. Historically, the birth of the auto industry, with its accompanying need for assembly plants, steel mills and gasoline stations, generated millions of new jobs. July 2018 issue based on June starts statistics. 1st half 2018 results.Friday, July 13th, 2018Article source: ConstructConnect ConstructConnect announced today that June’s volume of construction starts, excluding residential activity, was $39.8 billion – a month-to-month change of -24.7%. The one-quarter drop was not due to market conditions. Rather, the comparison of June versus May suffered from the latter including Foxconn Technology’s $10 billion industrial plant in Wisconsin. June relative to May exclusive of that single mega project was still down, but by only -7.2%. The historical May-to-June change, aided by favorable ‘seasonality’, has been +4.5%.
June 2018 versus the same month of last year was -6.3%. June 2018 versus the five-year average for June, from 2013 through 2017, was +3.2%. Year-to-date starts in 2018, compared with first half (H1) 2017 starts, have been -5.5%. 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.
U.S. June Total Jobs Higher by One-quarter Million Versus Previously Reported MayFriday, July 6th, 2018Article source: ConstructConnect June’s Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) records a pickup in total jobs of +213,000 in the latest month.
But that +213,000 compares June’s level of total jobs with a revised figure for May. May’s figure is now being estimated higher by +37,000 vis à vis what was reported for May a month ago. Therefore, June’s level of total U.S. jobs is now +250,000 (i.e., the sum of 213,000 and 37,000) versus what was reported by the BLS a month ago. That’s an increase in total employment of a quarter of a million jobs. The gain in U.S. total employment through the first half of this year has been 1.3 million jobs. In H1 of last year, the increase was 1.1 million. The monthly average climb so far in 2018 has been +215,000. Through the first six months of 2017, the monthly average increment was also good, but it was a somewhat lower +184,000. Expressed another way, the monthly average jobs jump in first-half of 2018 has been +17% compared with the first-half of 2017. The unemployment rate in June fell back slightly to 4.0% from 3.8% in May. The retreat was because the continuation of strong employment prospects has caused a month-to-month uptick in the participation rate, to 62.9% from 62.7%. Among industrial sub-sectors, the three standouts for jobs improvement in June were: ‘education and health services’, +54,000; ‘professional and business services’, +50,000; and in a long-time-coming and pleasantly-welcome development, ‘manufacturing’, +36,000. The leap in manufacturing employment was almost all within the durable goods realm, +32,000. And within durable goods, hiring was most intense in ‘motor vehicles and parts’, +12,000; ‘fabricated metal products’, +7,000; and ‘computer and electronic products’, +5,000. The +54,000 jog upwards in ‘educational and health services’ employment was comprised of ‘educational services’, +19,000; ‘health care’, +25,000; and ‘social assistance’, +10,000. Staffing in ‘professional and business services’ (+50,000) received boosts from ‘temporary help services’, +9,000; ‘architectural and engineering services’, +7,000; and ‘computer systems design and related design’, +6,000. Austin, San Jose and Orlando Lead U.S. Large City Labor MarketsFriday, May 25th, 2018Article source: ConstructConnect Tables 1 and 2 accompanying this article set out the latest (March 2018) year-over-year jobs growth and unemployment rate rankings for the 51 largest (by population) U.S. metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs). The raw data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The objective for any city is that its jobs growth be faster rather than slower and that its unemployment rate be lower rather than higher. The total U.S. pace of employment gain has most recently been +1.5% year over year, while the national jobless rate has dropped to 3.9%. The three U.S. cities with the best combined results from Tables 1 and 2 are: Austin, TX; San Jose, CA; and Orlando, FL. In March of this year, Austin was first for jobs growth (+3.6%) and tied for sixth with respect to unemployment rate (3.1%). Orlando was second for jobs growth (+3.5%) and tied for ninth with respect to unemployment rate (3.3%). San Jose was ninth for jobs growth (+2.7%), but tied for first with respect to unemployment rate (2.7%). 12 Mid-May Economic Nuggets With an Emphasis on Mega ProjectsFriday, May 18th, 2018Article source: ConstructConnect t’s been a busy four-weeks-plus on the news front since the writing of the previous mid-month Nuggets report. A surfeit of headline stories has included: a volcano erupting in Hawaii; an on-again off-again bromance between President Trump and Kim Jung Un of North Korea; the relocation of America’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem; feverish preparations for a royal wedding ‘across the pond’; U.S. withdrawal from the deal designed to limit Iran’s nuclear weapons capability; a drip-drip of revelations concerning Washington influence-peddling dished out by Michael Avenatti, the lawyer for Stormy Daniels; and violence in the Gaza Strip.
Shunted aside by other attention-grabbing matters, the economy seems to have taken a back seat for a while. But the spotlight never stays away for long and there are the following observations that arise from the latest press and data releases issued by government and private sector entities. |
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