Ken Simonson's blog

It is too early to know what impact the devastation from Hurricane Harvey will have on construction materials prices and supply. There have been immediate price surges for motor fuels because of refinery shutdowns; these will affect supply all along pipelines to the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic and Midwest that depend on Gulf Coast production or imports. [node:read-more:link]

Filling craft positions and some salaried positions remains as great a challenge for contractors as it was a year ago, according to participants in AGC's 2017 Workforce Survey, released on Tuesday.  [node:read-more:link]

Construction employment increased by 6,000 for the month and 191,000 (2.8%) y/y. The July total, 6,899,000, was the largest since October 2008. Average hourly earnings in construction increased 2.4% y/y to $28.90, or 9.6% higher than the average for all private-sector employees ($26.36, a rise of 2.5% y/y). [node:read-more:link]

The producer price index (PPI) for final demand in June, not seasonally adjusted, increased 0.2% from May and 2.0% year-over-year (y/y) from June 2016, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Thursday. [node:read-more:link]

Headlines on recent news stories suggest rising construction materials and labor costs are pushing up project prices and may be contributing to cancellations, but the articles point to other possible explanations. [node:read-more:link]

Seasonally adjusted construction employment rose in 42 states from May 2016 to May 2017 and fell in eight states and the District of Columbia, an AGC analysis of BLS data released Friday showed.  [node:read-more:link]

There were 203,000 construction industry job openings, not seasonally adjusted, at the end of April—the highest April level since 2007, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on Tuesday in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS).  [node:read-more:link]

Nonfarm payroll employment in May rose by 138,000, seasonally adjusted, from April and by 2,226,000 (1.6%) year-over-year (y/y), the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Friday. The unemployment rate dipped to 4.3% from 4.4% in April.  [node:read-more:link]