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5 days ago | 
enr.com | Alisa Zevin
Overall construction spending fell 0.4% in April, compared to March, according to date released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. Monthly non-residential spending fell 0.1%, while residential spending declined 0.9% in the same time period. “Construction spending slipped in April as headwinds like trade policy uncertainty, high interest rates and tight lending standards continued to batter industrywide momentum,” Anirban Basu, chief economist at Associated Builders and Contractors.
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3 weeks ago | 
enr.com | Alisa Zevin
Construction materials prices declined 0.1% in April when compared to March, according to the Price Produce Index (PPI) data released May 15 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Prices are up 0.1% since April 2024 and 41.3% since February 2020. The decline “was largely due to falling energy prices,” Anirban Basu, chief economist at Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), said in a press release. Natural gas prices fell 7.1% while unprocessed energy prices decreased 5%.
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3 weeks ago | 
enr.com | Annemarie Mannion |Johanna Knapschaefer |Alisa Zevin |Jennifer Seward
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3 weeks ago | 
enr.com | Alisa Zevin
Construction backlog rose to 8.7 months in April, according to the Construction Backlog Indicator survey conducted by Associated Builders and Contractors. The figure is up 0.2 months since March, and is the highest figure recorded by the survey in 20 months. “Contractors remain busy,” Anirban Basu, ABC chief economist, said in a statement.
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3 weeks ago | 
enr.com | Alisa Zevin
The U.S. and China announced a 90-day trade agreement on May 12 that will allow some breathing room as the two countries continue to negotiate a more permanent deal. Chinese tariffs on many U.S. goods have been dropped from 125% to 10%, while the U.S. lowered tariffs on many Chinese goods from 145% to 30%. While the news is promising, industry economists remain wary due to the changing nature of the tariffs.
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1 month ago | 
enr.com | Alisa Zevin
Total construction spending fell 0.5% month-over-month in March, according to a report recently released by the U.S. Census Bureau. Residential construction spending fell 0.4% from February’s rates, while non-residential spending declined 0.5%. “Nonresidential construction spending fell sharply in March, with declines spread across virtually every private subsector,” Anirban Basu, chief economist at Associated Builders and Contractors, said in a press release.
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1 month ago | 
enr.com | Alisa Zevin
Despite the current economic uncertainty, construction unemployment numbers remain low, according to a report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) unemployment rate was 5.4% in March, the same rate recorded in March 2024. Bernard Markstein, president and chief economist of Markstein Advisors, who analyzed the report for Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), remains cautious about the construction economy going forward.
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1 month ago | 
enr.com | Alisa Zevin
Available job openings in the construction sector showed month-to-month and year-over-year declines. Economists point to caution from investors and owners taking a wait and see approach—at least in the near term—as tariff rates remain unresolved and wariness over the economic outlook persists. Sector jobs were down 38,000 as of the last day of March compared to February’s numbers, according to the recently released U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
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1 month ago | 
enr.com | Alisa Zevin
Construction material prices rose 0.5% on a monthly basis in March, with yearly prices up 0.8%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Price Producer Index released April 11. While the administering of tariffs to various countries remains volatile, prices for many materials are beginning to see the effects.
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1 month ago | 
enr.com | Alisa Zevin
After going into effect for a roughly half a day on April 9, President Trump pulled back most of the new tariffs his administration announced last week, putting them on a 90-day pause. This leaves the current 10% tariff rate that went into effect in early April in place for most countries, while China will be slapped with 125%, a higher rate than announced last week. China recently reported that imports from the United States would face a tariff of 84%.
