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

The accompanying table records the top 10 project starts in the U.S. for September 2021.

A Chipmaker to the Rescue ConstructConnect announced today that September 2021's volume of construction starts, excluding residential work, was $38.0 billion (see shaded green box, bottom of Table 8 below), an increase of +12.7% compared with August 2021's level of $33.7 billion (originally reported as $33.0 billion).

There are two big stories from the September Jobs reports just released for the U.S. and Canada.

Graph 2 at the end of this article shows that the gap between high year-over-year material cost increases, as captured in two Producer Price Index (PPI) series, and relatively restrained year-over-year bid price increases from contractors (also coming from a PPI) is narrowing, but it remains immense.

For the first time in nearly a year, the four major stock market indices featured in Table 1 fell into a rough patch in September, all declining in a range that extended from -2.5% for the TSX to -5.3% for NASDAQ.

U.S. Housing Starts Stay Elevated Construction activity in the United States is currently being sustained almost exclusively by residential work. Year to date through August, the put-in-place capital spending figures from the Census Bureau show the residential dollar volume to be +25.8% compared with Jan-Aug 2020 and nonresidential to be -6.7%. The grand total is +7.0%.

Due to its complexity, much of the subject matter concerning the economy requires detailed editorial commentary, often supported by relevant tables and graphs.

Two of the major themes that will be governing U.S. construction activity as the coronavirus-caused downturn recedes into legend will be electrification and decarbonization. In most ways, they are two sides of the same coin, with the former seen by many in public governance, with environmental think tanks, and even among the general populace, as the best way to achieve the latter.   

The accompanying table records the 10 largest construction project starts in Canada in August 2021. Also included is the latest trend graph on starts. This looks at 12-month moving totals of the civil and nonresidential building categories in Canada.