Article source: CMDGroup

While U.S. national output and total employment have reached their previous peak levels, from before the Great Recession, and are now exploring new higher territory, construction activity is continuing to lag.

There are numerous way to illustrate this point. Today’s Economy at a Glance will focus on just one, utilizing a consistent set of data from the Federal Reserve representing the activity levels of a variety of building product manufacturers (BPMs).

The accompanying graphs show indices of industrial production, from 2000 to the present, in eight building commodity areas. In each instance, the index base is 2012’s monthly average set equal to 100.0.

North American Industrial Classification System (a.k.a., NAICS) numbers have been included in the ‘data source’ references at the bottom of each chart.

For ‘plywood’, ‘cement’ and ‘architectural and structural metals (e.g., engineered buildings)’, the trend in activity levels since the 2008-2009 Big Dip has been clearly up, but not yet to a degree indicating full recovery.
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