ConstructConnect Releases 2024 January Construction Starts Data

Economic highlights from the United States and Canadian construction markets, in partnership with Oxford Economics

Stronger economic outlook pushes up forecast by 1.7 percentage points

ConstructConnect Releases 2023 December and Full-Year Construction Starts Data

The negative impact of higher interest rates on U.S. housing starts has been dissipating since late summer 2023, culminating in a near normal month for residential groundbreakings in November.

The latest Employment Situation Report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics speaks of a +150,000 gain in the total number of U.S. jobs in October. That figure on its own is ho-hum. It is the second lowest monthly increase since pandemic days. (June of this year was weaker at +105,000).

The headline number for U.S. jobs growth in August, from today’s release of the Employment Situation report, authored by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), is +187,000, which sounds pretty good at first reading. Upon closer examination, however, it loses some luster.

Try thinking like a central banker. Your main goal at the moment is to bring down inflation to around +2.0% year over year. Your primary weapon to achieve that end is high interest rates. They’ll slow consumer spending and housing starts but will also cause collateral damage in labor markets. Signs of kinks in job creation will be greeted with a smile.

As my colleague, Michael Guckes is wont to say, every economic cycle is different. The study of ‘the dismal science’ (as economics has sometimes been labeled) in school lecture halls pretends otherwise.