Posts Tagged ‘Construction services’
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
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
Wednesday, April 15th, 2020
Article source: ConstructConnect
- On the medical front, there are statistics on infection rates and mortality rates. Such data points are then held up against the figures that prevailed during the SARS and H1N1 outbreaks and the influenza scourge of 1918. On the business side, employment and GDP performances are assessed relative to what occurred during the Financial Crisis, the Great Depression and averages over of all recessions. There’s a lesson to be learned while swimming in this numbers-saturated sea: crises come and go, but statistics live forever.
- Add to the list of statistics a new one, the ‘compliance’ rate. The compliance rate is the proportion of the population that is adhering to ‘social distancing’. It’s a surprisingly high 90%. In initial ‘modeling’ about the spread of the disease, only 50% was the assumption made concerning the general population’s willingness to stay indoors to defeat this thing.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, architect, banking, bids, build, Canada, cement, CMD, ConstructConnect, Construction, Construction services, coronavirus, COVID-19, developers, house, interest rate, lumber, material, money, oil, recovery, residential, shareknowledge, steel, tenders
Comments Off on Notes from the Trenches (14)
Friday, July 5th, 2019
Article source: ConstructConnect
Strong U.S. Jobs Growth has Interest Rate Implications
The U.S. total number of jobs in June shot up by +224,000, according to the latest Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). A slight rise in the ‘participation rate’, to 62.9% from 62.8% in May, caused June’s unemployment rate to climb a notch, from 3.6% to 3.7%. A 3.7% level of unemployment is still remarkably tight.
Everyone’s keeping a close eye out for signs of a weakening U.S. economy that would warrant an interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve (Graph 1). They won’t find justification for such a move in June’s jobs numbers. May’s lackluster +75,000 addition had pointed to trouble possibly brewing, but that’s become old news. It’s been superseded by fresh buoyancy.
It should be pointed out, however, that the jobs performances in some sectors have taken an interesting turn of late. This will be examined in the next section.
Worth noting, also, is that despite June’s strength, average monthly job creation in the U.S. so far in 2019 has been +172,000. With half a year having already sped by, +172,000 is a decline of more than a quarter (-26.8%) compared with January-to-June 2018’s average of +235,000.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Construction services, Economist, Economy, employment, Growth, jobless, jobs
Comments Off on June Jobs Reports: U.S. Bounces Back; Canada Weak M/M but Strong Ytd
Monday, March 4th, 2019
Article source: ConstructConnect
The table and maps accompanying this article feature comparisons of highway, street and roadwork construction starts in all the states, plus District of Columbia, in two ways: (1) by dollar-volume level, taking the annual average over the past two years (2017 and 2018); and (2) per capita (i.e., the dollar volume in (1) divided by each individual state’s population).
In some states, there can be considerable variation in the dollar volume of roadwork starts from one year to the next. Therefore, it seems only fair to smooth the series out a bit, and hence the reason for utilizing a latest-two-years average.
On the left-hand side of Table 1, there is a ranking of all states and D.C. according to their level of roadwork construction starts. Sixteen states have exceeded an annual average of $1.0 billion over the past two years and they are highlighted in Map 1. Washington state, at $995 million, and New Jersey, at $980 million, just missed the cut.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, construct, ConstructConnect, Construction, Construction industry, Construction services, Economist, Economy, market
Comments Off on Rankings of States and Provinces by Roadwork Construction Starts
Tuesday, February 12th, 2019
Article source: ConstructConnect
There are 51 metropolitan statistical areas (CMAs) in the United States with population levels above one million each. Drawing from ConstructConnect’s data pool for those 51 cities, Table 1 ranks the Top 25 markets in America for medical facility construction starts in 2018. (Map 1 showcases the Top 20.)
Leading all cities last year was Washington, D.C., with groundbreakings on hospitals, clinics, nursing and seniors’ homes combined valued at $1.3 billion. Next in line were Cleveland ($1.1 billion), Phoenix ($883 million), Cincinnati ($858 million), Pittsburgh ($740 million), Atlanta and Orlando (tied at $736 million), Tampa-St. Petersburg ($718 million); and Houston ($708 million).
Notice the presence of a pair of cities in Ohio – i.e., Cleveland and Cincinnati – only a rung or two short of the summit in the dollar-volume listing.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Construction services, Economic, Medical Facility
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Friday, February 1st, 2019
Due to its complexity, much of the subject matter concerning the economy requires detailed editorial commentary, often supported by relevant tables and graphs. This infographic looks at Canada’s extraordinarily fast population growth and the latest statistics.
At the same time, though, there are many topics (e.g., relating to demographics, housing starts, etc.) that cry out for compelling ‘short-hand’ visualizations.
Whichever path is followed, the point of the journey, almost always, is to reach a bottom line or two.
To provide additional value at its corporate blog site, ConstructConnect is now pleased to offer an ongoing series of Infographics.
These will help readers sort out the ‘big picture’ more clearly.
Click Here to view the latest infographic.
To view more infographics, Click Here
Also read the related article, “15 Bullet Points on Canada’s Extraordinarily Fast Population Growth“.
Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Construction services, Economic, Economist, population
Comments Off on Infographic: Canada’s Fast Population Growth
Friday, January 18th, 2019
Article source: ConstructConnect
Construction spending in various type-of structure categories is driven by economic circumstances within specific industrial subsectors. For example, manufacturers set the pace in industrial construction.
Good health in the leisure and hospitality sector provides the backing for new hotel and motel work. And jobs levels in information and financial services, as well as in more rapidly expanding fields of endeavor such as computer systems and design services, establish the need for additional office space and commercial tower square footage. (See, “Shifts in Office Jobs and Implications for Commercial Tower Construction.”)
This article is the second in a series of seven that examines key industrial sectors to determine where they are most prominent regionally. Rankings of state strength in each industrial subsector are based on both ‘weight’ and ‘concentration’ of relevant employment. ‘Weight’ is simply the number of jobs in the industrial subsector in each state. ‘Concentration’ is each state’s number of jobs in the subsector divided by the state’s population. In effect, it’s a ‘per capita’ figure, except that it’s expressed as number of jobs per million population.
By ‘weight’, the states with the largest populations are almost always high in the rankings. The rankings by ‘concentration’, however, often deliver a jolt of surprise or two.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Construction services, Economic, Economist, employment, Growth, information sector, market, software
Comments Off on Series (3 of 7): Rankings of States by Industrial Subsector Jobs – Information Services
Thursday, January 17th, 2019
Article source: ConstructConnect
Due to its complexity, much of the subject matter concerning the economy requires detailed editorial commentary, often supported by relevant tables and graphs. This infographic looks at U.S. large project starts in high-tech data and fulfillment centers and hotels and conference centers.
At the same time, though, there are many topics (e.g., relating to demographics, housing starts, etc.) that cry out for compelling ‘short-hand’ visualizations.
Whichever path is followed, the point of the journey, almost always, is to reach a bottom line or two.
To provide additional value at its corporate blog site, ConstructConnect is now pleased to offer an ongoing series of Infographics.
These will help readers sort out the ‘big picture’ more clearly.
To view the latest infographic.
Also read the related article, “U.S. 2018 Large Project Starts by Type of Structure“.
Tags: ConstructConnect, Construction, Construction industry, Construction services, Economic, house, Labor, material, money
Comments Off on Infographic: U.S. Large Project Starts – High-Tech Data Centers and Hotels
Thursday, January 10th, 2019
Article source: ConstructConnect
The dollar volume of ConstructConnect’s ‘grand total’ construction starts in full-year 2018 was -5.0% compared with full-year 2017. The percentage change for nonresidential work was -2.0%.
How significant were the largest project initiations in those overall percentage changes? Each month, to update clients on showcase project activity, ConstructConnect publishes a Top 10 groundbreakings list. The summation of the Top 10 projects for every month in 2018 (i.e., 120 projects in total) was $85.4 billion, +1.3% versus 2017’s comparable figure of $84.2 billion.
Many of 2018’s biggest project starts are set out in two accompanying infographics and tables. While there were other type-of-structure categories with multiple extra-large projects last year, six that stood out were: high-tech data and fulfilment centers; hotels and conference centers; bridges; manufacturing and distribution centers; medical facilities; and law enforcement.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Construction services, Economic, Economics, Economist, Economy, employ, Growth, Housing, job, jobless, Labor, market
Comments Off on U.S. 2018 Large Project Starts by Type of Structure – 2 Infographics
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