Construction's Unemployment Rate Falls to a Six-Year Low The construction sector added 20,000 new jobs in September after showing little change in the prior six months, according to the latest employment statistics from the Dept. of Labor. Moreover, the unemployment rate in the construction industry fell to a six-year low of 8.5%. Construction employment totaled 5,826,000 in September, which is 3.4% higher than in September 2012. Aggregate weekly hours of all construction employees rose 4.2% over the year, indicating that companies are adding to existing workers' hours in addition to hiring new employees.M.C. Dean To Pay $875,000 to Job Applicants
Construction Forecast: 2014 After a sluggish 2013, the construction industry could see a gradual uptick in total construction starts in 2014, according the McGraw Hill Construction's 2014 Dodge Construction Outlook. Total construction starts next year could rise by 9%, to $555 billion, led by a solid housing market and improved opportunities in commercial building, it forecasts. Non-building sectors, especially electrical utilities, could be a drag on starts in the coming years."It's another step along the road to recovery, but on the painful-to-frustrating side at times," says Robert Murray, vice president of economic affairs at McGraw Hill Construction. The forecast was
Related Links: Engineering News-Record Construction Economics Whenever anything or anyone turns 100, it's a big deal. With a base year of 1913, ENR's cost indexes have joined that category after a century of measuring construction cost fluctuations and reflecting the industry's most important trends. The use of the cost indexes has grown almost as dramatically as the indexes themselves.They captured, for example, the explosion in union wages that caused costs to jump in the 1970s, and they tracked the record hike in steel prices and its effects on overall construction costs in 2004.Over the years, ENR has labored to ensure
Global Construction 2025 report Work in emerging economies will grow to two-thirds of the global market by 2025 Global Construction 2025 report Growth rates will vary markedly among nations. Related Links: Global Construction 2025 Report Website ENR Global Summit 2013: Successful Global Firms Learn to Nurture their Supply Chains In the industrialized world, the U.S. leads the pack with a predicted construction-market growth rate that will average 4% a year through 2025, says a new U.K.-based global forecast. While the U.S. will remain the world's second-largest market, its share will drop in the next 12 years as China builds up
Related Links: ENR 2013 2Q Cost Report (full report, subscription-only) Engineering News-Record's Quarterly Cost Reports Construction Financial Management Association It has not been an easy five years for the construction industry. The recession of 2008 hit nearly every market sector and region in the country. Recovery has been slow. For years, forecasters have searched in vain for signs that the worst of the recession is in the rearview mirror.The most recent ENR Construction Industry Confidence Index survey may be that sign. It shows the industry believes the market has turned a corner and is beginning, in fits and starts, to
Related Links: Engineering News-Record Construction Economics The construction market has taken its lumps over the past four years, tempting a normally optimistic industry to get gloomy.However, for the first time since early 2008, the industry is seeing signs that suggest the worst is over and the market is gradually recovering.The most recent ENR Construction Industry Confidence Index survey shows the industry's growing hope that recovery is at hand. The first-quarter 2013 CICI surged to a record 64 points on a scale of 100, which represents a growing market. The vast majority of the 376 executives of large construction and design
Related Links: View Complete 4Q Cost Report with Data and Analysis (pdf-subscription or purchase only) Construction Financial Management Association The construction industry has been expecting a turnaround in the market for the past three years, but just when sentiment starts to improve, fate steps in to thwart an upswing. Most recently, industry executives said that, once the national elections were decided in November, there would be more clarity on the direction of the market. With the results behind us, industry still is waiting for a sign that a market uptick is near.The most recent ENR Construction Industry Confidence Index survey
The highway paving market will remain relatively flat next year, according to a forecast by ARTBA. It predicts that highway work will increase next year just 2.3%, to $47.7 billion, which would still be well below 2010's level of $51 billion. "The good news is that after reaching record levels in 2012, the bridge market will stay close to that level in 2013," says ARTBA's economist Alison Black. Her forecast sees up to $28.2 billion in bridge work next year. "Any real growth in 2013 will count on state funding, which does not look good," she says.
The National Association of Home Builders says this year's estimated 22% increase in single-family housing starts was not a fluke. NAHB predicts the market will continue to come back with a 25% increase in 2013, followed by another 30% increase in 2014. Those upticks would bring the market back to 865,000 units. "We think it will continue to grow from there," says Robert Denk, NAHB senior economist. He predicts that market fundamentals can support 1.4 million single-family housing starts a year, but that won't happen until 2016.
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