Economy

WHAT WE LEARNED IN MAY: TRADE POLICY CONTINUES TO CLOUD OUTLOOK Construction-specific economic data released in May provide mixed signals. Nonresidential construction spending fell sharply in April, and industrywide job openings are down significantly over the past year. At the...

WASHINGTON, May 15—Construction input prices decreased 0.1% in April compared to the previous month, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index data. Nonresidential construction input prices increased 0.2%...

WASHINGTON, May 2—The construction industry added 11,000 jobs in April, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data released today by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. On a year-over-year basis, industry employment has grown by 143,000 jobs, an increas...

WASHINGTON, May 1—National nonresidential construction spending decreased 0.5% in March, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data published today by the U.S. Census Bureau. On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, nonresidential spending totaled $1.2...

WASHINGTON, April 29—The construction industry had 248,000 job openings on the last day of March, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey. JOLTS defines a job opening as ...

What We Learned in April: Construction Industry Outlook Darkens Construction-specific economic data released in April paint a somewhat upbeat picture of the industry’s recent performance. Nonresidential spending reached the highest level on record, contractors added jobs for the...

WASHINGTON, April 15—Associated Builders and Contractors reported today that its Construction Backlog Indicator rose to 8.5 months in March, according to an ABC member survey conducted March 20 to April 6. The reading is up 0.3 months since March 2024. View ABC’s Construction Ba...

Update as of April 10, 10:00am: Even with yesterday's pause, Basu says the effective tariff rate on U.S. imports is lower than it was Wednesday morning, but is still higher than what was originally announced on April 2, "because America imports so much from China." However, tha...

What We Learned in March: Construction Industry Momentum Wavers Nonresidential construction spending continues to inch higher while the industry keeps adding jobs at a healthy pace, but trade tensions, tariffs, rising material prices and higher-for-longer interest rates could we...

Step back in time, and there’s a good chance that most of the names in the construction business no longer exist. Of the more than 43,000 construction companies that started in the spring of 2011, less than 38% managed to stick around a decade later, according to data from the U....