Construction Economic News

There are aspects to the current inflation problem that deserve an airing. First, while the U.S. all-items CPI-U increase, often referred to as the headline rate, is +8.3% y/y and the core rate, which leaves out price-volatile food and energy items, is +6.3% y/y, there is another measure that isn’t nearly as extreme.

In the United States, the Federal Reserve has just raised its key policy-setting interest rate, the federal funds rate, into a range from 3.00% to 3.25%. The intent is to cool inflation, which is +8.3% year over year for the Consumer Price Index (i.e., CPI-U, with U standing for urban consumers). The U.S. core inflation rate is +6.3%. Core leaves out price-volatile energy and food items.

There will be a lot riding on the hoped-for success of the U.S. manufacturing sector over the decade-plus ahead if the goals concerning carbon emission reductions by mid-century are to be met. There will need to be tremendously large investments in electric vehicle production line expansions, new EV battery plants, computer chipmaking operations, and in the fabrication of all the building products that will go into renewable electricity generation, utility-sized power storage units, coast-to-coast recharging stations, new hydrogen extraction facilities, and so on.

The accompanying table records the top 10 project starts in the United States for August 2022.

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

August Found July To Be Hard Act To Follow ConstructConnect announced today that August 2022’s volume of construction starts, excluding residential work, was $40.0 billion, a decrease of -26.3% compared with July’s figure of $54.3 billion (originally reported as $53.7 billion).

Statistics Canada’s August Labour Force Survey report was a downer. It set out a third straight month of total jobs count decline. In August, the employment step back was -40,000 jobs. In the two preceding months of July and June, the retreats were -30,000 and -43,000 respectively.

The other day, I wrote about U.S. city labor markets. Today’s article presents the same subject matter and graphics for Canada.

It’s always helpful to know which U.S. cities have the hottest economies and one way to make that assessment is to look at their labor markets.

The total number-of-jobs count in the United States rose by +315,000 in August, according to the latest Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At least, +315,000 is the figure that will be featured in media headlines; but it doesn’t tell a totally accurate story.