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Economy in Brief
U.S. Trade Deficit Widens to $68.2 Billion in January
The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services widened to $68.2 billion in January...
U.S. Factory Orders & Shipments Rise Again in January
Manufacturing activity is strengthening. Factory orders rose 2.6% (2.8% y/y) in January...
U.S. Initial Unemployment Insurance Claims Rise Just 9,000
Initial claims for unemployment insurance rose modestly by 9,000 to 745,000 in the week ended February 27...
U.S. Productivity's Decline Lessened in Q4'20; Reverses Q3 Increase
Revisions to nonfarm business sector productivity indicated a 4.2% decline during Q4'20...
EMU Unemployment Rate Steadies in January
The overall EMU unemployment rate was steady in January, off peak, but still elevated...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller May 2, 2005
The total value of construction put in place rose 0.5% in March for the second month. Consensus expectations had been for a 0.3% gain.
Private residential building activity rose 0.3% following an upwardly revised 1.1% increase in February. The value of new single family building added 0.5% (13.2% y/y) to increases during the prior three months which ranged between 1.0% & 2.0%.
Nonresidential building recovered most of the prior month's decline as office building again was strong and rose 2.6% (5.6% y/y). Manufacturing building surged 11.3% (38.1% y/y) following two months of decline.
Public construction rose 0.3% following a downwardly revised gain in February. Spending on highways & streets, nearly one third of the value of public construction spending, slipped 0.4% (+2.1% y/y) following strong gains during the prior five months.
These more detailed categories represent the Census Bureaus reclassification of construction activity into end-use groups. Finer detail is available for many of the categories; for instance, commercial construction is shown for Automotive sales and parking facilities, drugstores, building supply stores, and both commercial warehouses and mini-storage facilities. Note that start dates vary for some seasonally adjusted line items in 2000 and 2002 and that constant-dollar data are no longer computed.
Construction Put-in-place | Mar | Feb | Y/Y | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | 0.5% | 0.5% | 8.0% | 8.9% | 5.1% | 1.5% |
Private | 0.5% | 0.4% | 10.4% | 10.7% | 6.0% | -0.2% |
Residential | 0.3% | 1.1% | 12.1% | 13.9% | 13.1% | 8.4% |
Nonresidential | 1.1% | -1.4% | 6.3% | 3.7% | -7.1% | -12.8% |
Public | 0.3% | 0.7% | 0.5% | 3.3% | 2.6% | 7.0% |