Jobless Rate Falls, But Industry Adds Just 1,000 Jobs in August Construction's unemployment rate continued to head downward in August, dipping to 11.3% from July's 12.3%, but the industry posted a gain of only 1,000 jobs last month. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest monthly employment status report, released on Sept. 7, also showed that construction's jobless rate last month was better than the 13.5% level for August 2011. But industry officials said one factor behind the construction unemployment rate's decline is that many workers have left the construction industry. "While we all breathe a sigh of relief any time
Construction Starts Decline 10% in July After showing improvement during the spring, the pace of construction starts has retreated over the past three months, declining another 10% in July, according to McGraw-Hill Construction. Through the first seven months of the year, starts totaled $262.9 billion, a 4% gain over the same period of a year ago. "Construction is still struggling to gain upward traction," says MHC's chief economist, Robert Murray. "Public works and institutional buildings are being adversely affected by the tough fiscal climate, while a faint upturn in commercial buildings becomes more tenuous," he says.Bechtel-B&W Role Questioned After Break-in
Construction Week news updates from ENR: Newspaper Claims Caltrans Ignored Bridge Safety Issues The California Dept. of Transportation has ignored several deficiency assessments made by an independent engineering review panel regarding Bay Bridge construction, according to a recent published report. The Sacramento Bee newspaper reported that the panel, which CalTrans appointed, found some "intentional modifications" of data that caused "consequential" impact and involved not only the concrete foundation piles of the new self-anchored suspension tower on the bridge but also foundation safety testing on several other Bay Area bridges. Caltrans Director Malcolm Dougherty said in a statement, "The 'results' cited by
Construction Markets StabilizingAt Low Levels During 2012 In its updated 2012 construction market forecast released on July 18, McGraw-Hill Construction sees an uneven recovery. MHC predicts a stronger-than-expected rebound in the housing market and a modest uptick in the private non-residential building market, dampened by continued weakness in the public building and non-building markets. MHC now expects total new construction starts to increase 2.5% in 2012, after an anemic 0.3% gain last year.The biggest percentage boost comes from housing, which is rebounding from historic lows. Single-family housing is expected to increase 21% in dollar value this year, while multifamily housing
D.C.-Md. Utility May Bury Lines After a strong and sudden storm on June 29 cut power to 443,000 customers in Washington, D.C., and its Maryland suburbs, utility Pepco said it is considering burying more power lines. The company has no cost estimate yet to place its system underground, but experts have estimated it could be as high as $5 billion since lines must be buried in 3-ft-deep trenches, said a spokesman. "Pepco will analyze the benefits and costs of more extensive selective undergrounding and even complete undergrounding of the overhead electric system," he said. The utility told the Maryland Public
ENR na Related Links: View Complete Report with Data and Analysis (pdf) Demand Starts To Unfreeze Pay Cheap Natural Gas Is Reinvigorating U.S. Power Production and Manufacturing In just a few years, America has become the low-cost producer of a major energy source—natural gas—and the long-term implications could be a game changer for some materials. New drilling technology has dramatically increased the production of oil and gas from North America's abundant shale resources. Furthermore, producers are now "flaring off" fewer wells to capture the gas for productive uses.This trend already is spurring construction in the powerplant sector: Utilities are switching
McGraw-Hill Construction has launched the new Dodge Momentum Index, which is designed to be an accurate indicator of future construction put-in-place data published by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce. In designing the new index, MHC looked at over a decade of monthly data and discovered that Dodge's planning figures can predict non-residential building put-in-place 12 month ahead with a 91% accuracy rate. Since last July, the index has trended up in all but two months.
The U.S. Green Building Council announced recently that its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program now will recognize credits from the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method, or BREEAM.
+ Image Source: McGraw-Hill Research & Analytics/ENR Related Links: Full Details: ENR's Fourth Quarterly Cost Report (subscription) Trying to predict when the industry recovery will kick in, construction economists can only agree that things will get better, just not next year. While the optimists are hoping healthy markets will return in 2013, the pessimists are hoping for 2014 or even 2015 (see ENR 11/14/11 p. 10). Next year's expected weak demand underlies ENR's forecast for its cost indexes in 2012. Unemployment will continue to keep labor costs in check, and neither lumber, steel nor cement prices are expected to make
