Posts Tagged ‘Economy’
Friday, May 18th, 2018
Article 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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Tags: Alex Carrick, Connect, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Economy
Comments Off on 12 Mid-May Economic Nuggets With an Emphasis on Mega Projects
Monday, April 16th, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
Despite U.S. construction continuing to record a total activity level below potential, the sector should be receiving more bouquets for the bigger role it is playing in the economy overall.
Historical data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) records that in the year 2000, the number of manufacturing jobs in America’s economy was 17.3 million. The same source records that the number of construction jobs at the turn of the century was 6.8 million.
In 2017 versus 2000, the number of manufacturing jobs in the U.S. was down by 28% to 12.4 million, while the number of construction jobs was ahead by 3%, to 7.0 million.
The clearest way to illustrate the rising importance of construction relative to manufacturing, at least from an employment standpoint, is to express their relationship in terms of a ratio. In 2000, there were four jobs in construction for every ten jobs in manufacturing. Now, there almost six on-site jobs for every ten production-line positions.
More dramatic still has been the shift in favor of construction work in Canada. In 2000, there were 2.2 million Canadian manufacturing jobs compared with 800,000 in construction. By 2017, manufacturing employment had retreated by -23%, to 1.7 million, while construction employment had surged by +75%, to 1.4 million.
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Tags: AEC, Alex Carrick, build, ConstructConnect, Construction, Construction industry, Construction services, Economist, Economy, job, jobs, Labor, US
Comments Off on 11 Mid-April Economic Nuggets
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
This article provides a ranking of America’s Top Dozen States according to their goods export volumes in full year 2017.
Total U.S. goods exports last year amounted to almost one-and-a-half trillion dollars.
The background foreign trade data comes from the Census Bureau’s web-based site entitled USA Trade Online. While it’s relatively easy to open a free account, if one is not familiar with ‘pivot tables’, there is a bit of a learning curve to access the statistics.
The type-of-product designations follow the definitions in the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS).
(1) Texas:
Texas, with export shipments of $264.1 billion and a 17.9% share of the nation’s total, was the leader among U.S. states for foreign sales in 2017. The NAICS category at the top of the Lone Star State’s exports list was ‘computer and electronic products’ ($47.0 billion), but close behind were ‘petroleum and coal products’ ($44.0 billion), ‘chemicals’ ($40.0 billion) and ‘oil and gas’ ($32.0). ‘Chemicals’ exports were dominated by synthetic rubber.
While Texas has a high level of computer-product exports, it would be more accurate to say that the State is especially strong in energy-product export sales. Energy products as a catch-all would combine refined petroleum (e.g., gasoline), chemicals, crude oil and natural gas for more than $100 billion.
In 2017, there were substantial increases in oil exports from Texas to China, Canada and South Korea. Other major customers for Texas crude last year were Mexico and Brazil.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, architect, build, Economic, Economics, Economist, Economy, election, employ, Housing, interest rate, Labor, market, material, money
Comments Off on Ranking and Reviewing America’s Top Dozen Exporting States
Tuesday, March 13th, 2018
The three maps in this infographic focus attention on the 2017-over-2016 percentage changes in homebuilding activity in America’s states. The Census Bureau does not publish home starts statistics at the state level, but it does compile and release residential permits numbers.
Therefore, the shadings in the maps are based on permits data (in units). The words ‘permits’ and ‘starts’ will be used interchangeably in the following commentary.
The total number of new home permits in the U.S. in 2017 was +6% compared with 2016. As the ‘legend-key’ sets out, individual states with percentage increases over +6% are shaded in green − for warmth.
As the shading moves from lighter green to darker green, the percentage increases move higher.
States shaded in blue − for chillier − had year-over-year increases that were +6% or less. The darkest shades of blue are reserved for states where there were significant 2017-over-2016 declines.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Economist, Economy, election, employ, employment, job, jobless, jobs, market
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Thursday, March 1st, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
At the beginning of February, there was a great deal of volatility in the U.S. major stock market indices. They fell into ‘correction’ territory, which in ‘market-talk’ means they dropped by 10% from their peaks, before steadying and heading cautiously upwards again.
Some of the initial downward movement was due to profit-taking, on the heels of years of exceptional equity price gains. As the retreat grew more severe, however, it became harder to explain, especially since the recently passed tax cuts will provide an extra boost to corporate bottom lines.
A consensus explanation gradually emerged and it goes as follows. Yes, the economy is growing rapidly and job creation is outstanding. But maybe output growth and labor market conditions are too good. The level of unemployment has dropped near a historical low. Can wage restraint hold? Furthermore, there is a synchronous world expansion underway and commodities demand is heating up. Prices for key raw materials are climbing once again.
All these developments have the potential to light a fire under inflation. And if inflation is on the rise, the Federal Reserve may feel the need to initiate ‘cooling’ interest rate hikes faster than earlier anticipated. Some economic forecasting firms are already projecting there will be four, not three, interest rate increases this year.
Therefore, perhaps the hottest topic for discussion throughout 2018 will be how inflation is performing. Specifically, is the ‘Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U)’ busting free from its +2.0% (year over year) bondage and raising more havoc?
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Tags: AEC, Alex Carrick, architect, Economic, Economics, Economist, Economy, inflation
Comments Off on Ten Mid-February Economic Nuggets – With a Focus on Inflation Fears
Thursday, February 15th, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
ConstructConnect announced today that January’s volume of construction starts, excluding residential activity, was $29.3 billion. The fact that some of the monthly starts numbers can display wild swings is confirmed by the following. January 2018’s volume of starts relative to December 2017’s level was +35.8%; but January 2018 compared with January 2017 was -22.6%.
The outsized percentage changes resulted from December 2017 being abnormally low ($21.6 billion) and January 2017 being inordinately high ($37.9 billion). Usually, it’s the presence or absence of a mega project or two that causes the monthly number to display extreme volatility.
Comparing January of this year with the annual average for January from the preceding five years, 2013 to 2017, − i.e., employing a ‘smoothing’ technique, − yields an increase of +9.7%.
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.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Economist, Economy
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Monday, January 8th, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
The tables accompanying this article highlight some of the key statistics on construction employment in 48 U.S. States. The source material from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) omits Delaware, the District of Columbia (D.C.) and Hawaii. The most recent data is for November 2017 and is not seasonally adjusted (NSA).
Table 1 ranks states by number of construction workers; Table 2 ranks states by year-over-year change in number of construction workers; and Table 3 ranks states by year-over-year percentage change in number of construction workers.
It’s not surprising that the large-population-states also account for the highest numbers of construction workers. The ranking positions 1 through 7 in Table 1 − i.e., California followed by Texas, Florida, N.Y., Pennsylvania, Illinois and Ohio − exactly correspond with the latest (for July 1, 2017) state population rankings.
Further down the listing, however, there are some significant variances. For example, Georgia is 8th for population, but 11th for construction employment; Michigan is 10th for population, but 13th for construction employment; New Jersey is 11th for population, but 15th for construction employment; Washington is 13th for population, but 9th for construction employment; Maryland is 19th for population, but 12th for construction employment; Colorado is 21st for population, but 14th for construction employment; and Louisiana is 25th for population, but 17th for construction employment.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Economic, Economist, Economy, employment, money
Comments Off on Rankings of U.S. State Construction Employment Statistics
Friday, January 5th, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
U.S. net total jobs creation in the final month of last year was a tepid +148,000, according to the latest Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The ‘weakish’ December result caused the monthly average throughout all 2017 to pull back slightly to +171,000
 Just the same, +171,000 as a monthly average in 2017 signifies a more than satisfactory performance, although it was down from 2016’s comparable figure of +187,000.
The U.S. unemployment rate in December remained the same as in November, at an exceptionally tight 4.1%.
The seasonally adjusted (SA) number of U.S. construction jobs recorded a nice gain in December of +30,000. Such a substantial increase in employment for on-site workers was the biggest leap since February 2017’s +54,000.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, build, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Construction services, Economy, market, money, US
Comments Off on U.S. December Jobs Creation ‘Weakish’, but Construction Compensation Bullish
Wednesday, January 3rd, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
After a stretch of several months earlier in the second half of 2017, when many of the Census Bureau’s sub-category put-in-place (PIP) construction spending numbers stalled, some sprightlier results were recorded once again in November.
 Given that 11 of last year’s 12 months have now been measured, the 2017 over 2016 year-end percentage-change for total construction will almost certainly be close to +5.0%. All the increase will have originated in the residential sector, +11.0%, with non-residential remaining flat.
It’s important to note, however, (i.e., from accompanying Table 1) that with respect to latest three-month results, non-residential work has been staging a comeback. For latest 3-months over previous 3-months (annualized), ‘total’, residential and non-residential are almost the same, only slightly below +9.0%
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Tags: alexcarrick, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Economics, Economy, Growth, US
Comments Off on U.S. Put-in-place Construction Spending Sprightlier in November
Monday, November 13th, 2017
Article source: ConstructConnect
As shown in Graphs 1, 2 and 3, the most widely known and discussed U.S. stock market indices – Dow Jones Industrial (DJI), S&P 500 and NASDAQ – all set new record highs in July.
On a year-over-year basis, the DJI at the close of last month was +18.8%; the S&P 500 was +13.6%; and NASDAQ especially stood out with a gain of +23.0%.
Just as remarkable have been the improvements in those three indices relative to their prior peaks.
Since its previous summit in October 2007 (13,930), the DJI is +57.2%.
Since October 2007 (1,549), the S&P 500 is +59.5%.
Also since October 2007 (2,859), when it managed a mini-peak, NASDAQ is presently +122.0%. NASDAQ is even up substantially (+35.2%) relative to its ‘Mt. Everest’ of peaks in February 2000 (4,696), when the ‘dot.com boom’ was in full swing.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, architect, construct, ConstructConnect, Economist, Economy, job, New York Stock Exchange, stock, stock market
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