Construction Economic News

The great debate concerning whether the United States is already in recession or is about to head down that path continues. 2022’s Q1 and Q2 gross domestic product performance figures are now estimated to be -1.6% and -0.6% respectively. But economywide unemployment is at a historic low and, as ConstructConnect is finding, many firms are feeling confident enough to go ahead with massive construction projects.

Let’s jump right into a discussion of some of the more interesting numbers to have appeared in recent public and private sector data releases. Exorbitant prices charged for nearly everything is seemingly top of mind for everyone, so that’s where we’ll begin. Is there relief in sight?

The accompanying table records the top 10 project starts in the United States for July 2022.

Clichés are often true and it is the case that a picture can be worth a thousand words.

Megaprojects Seized the Spotlight Again ConstructConnect announced today that July 2022’s volume of construction starts, excluding residential work, was $53.7 billion, an increase of +12.2% compared with June’s figure of $47.9 billion (originally reported as $47.5 billion).

Changes are happening quickly with respect to costs and prices in the economy. This article, in tables and graphs, sets out the latest Producer Price Index results published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It’ll be hard for anyone to find much fault with July’s Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The total number of jobs gained during the month was +528,000, which beat the previous six-month average of +461,000. Interestingly, it was just about a match for January-to-June 2021’s average of +533,000.

U.S. real, i.e., inflation-adjusted, gross domestic product contracted by -0.9% in the second quarter of this year, on the heels of a -1.6% slide in the first quarter. (By way of contrast, Q4 2021 pulled ahead by +6.9%).

You’ll often hear that the residential real estate market will be the first among all players in the economy to signal a cyclical change—e.g., from recession to recovery or vice versa—brought on by central bank interest rate action.

There’s no getting away from it, the opening sentence of a story on present economic circumstances has to feature inflation. So that’s where we’ll begin our Nuggets report this month, with the first point below laying out the broad strokes. Then we’ll delve deeper into today’s pricing and costing structures, and what additional knock-on implications are being revealed by other recent public and private sector data releases.