Posts Tagged ‘Construction’
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
Comments Off on With Construction Not Immune, Retail Sales Speak of Slowdown
Thursday, March 17th, 2022
Article source: ConstructConnect
(1) The latest inflation figure for the U.S., from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), is +7.9%, a several-decades high. It’s the year-over-year percentage change in February’s all-items Consumer Price Index (CPI), for all urban consumers. The ‘core’ rate of inflation, which excludes price-volatile food and energy items, is +6.4% y/y. The fact everyone is being ensnared in the strong price advances is captured by the performance of the CPI sub-category ‘food at home’, which has ballooned to +8.6% y/y.
(2) The price of gasoline in February was +38.0% y/y and that was before the repercussions for oil markets from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made their way to the pump. In early March, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude crossed above $100 USD per barrel for the first time in eight years, dating back to 2014. Petrol’s price per gallon has risen above $4.50 in some states and it seems unlikely that will prove to be the ceiling.
(3) Some relaxation in the headline inflation rate will eventually come from resolution of the notorious supply chain bottlenecks that have tied up cargo shipments at ports and along transportation routes. Also, there will be an easing in general price inflation, as a corollary of slower economic growth, resulting from the increases in interest rates being implemented by central banks. The Federal Reserve has just upped the target range for its federal funds rate to between 0.25% and 0.50%. The Bank of Canada has lifted its overnight rate to 0.50%.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Construction, house, Labor, lumber, market, material, money, recovery, residential
Comments Off on 12 Mid-March Economic Nuggets
Tuesday, July 6th, 2021
Article source: ConstructConnect
June was an excellent month for overall net jobs creation in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Total employment in the nation rose by +850,000 positions.
The construction sector, however, was left out of the bonanza. Staffing among the ‘hard hat’ contingent contracted by -7,000 jobs. The major plus and minus employment shifts within construction occurred with residential specialty contractors (i.e., sub-contractors), +13,000 jobs; nonresidential specialty contractors, -15,000 jobs; and heavy and civil general contractors, -11,000 jobs.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, construct, Construction, Construction industry, jobless, jobs, Labor, lumber, market, recovery, US
Comments Off on Construction Left Out of June’s U.S. Big Jobs Advance
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
Comments Off on Volatility the Name of the Game with Latest Economic Data Releases
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
Comments Off on Booms in U.S. & Canadian Housing: One Tentative, the Other Boisterous
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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Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020
Article source: ConstructConnect
- The pandemic is upending previous notions about what is needed to deliver successful versus questionable business results. Take ‘word processing’ versus ‘meat processing’. The latter has seen numerous plant shutdowns due to congestion in the workplace and virus contagion. The former, in at least one special way, has been delivering spectacular results.
- For a decade or more, news media operations have come under attack for not moving quickly enough to embrace new technology. Stodgy print media has been a favorite target. Firms in the sector were moving online, although often tentatively. The difficulty for many in the industry was to find a digital business model that would be financially rewarding. Most have now settled on their own vision of the optimal balance between subscription and advertising revenues. And the process has evolved to just the right stage. Media companies, unlike many other enterprises in the economy, have been able to carry on with operations even under coronavirus duress. For media companies, working from home has been a relatively easy transition, having minimal impact on the compilation and dissemination of information.
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Tags: airlines, banking, bids, cement, Construction, coronavirus, developers, lumber, recovery, shareknowledge, steel, tenders
Comments Off on From Within the Herd (June 1, 2020) – Word Processing vs Meat Processing
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