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Economy in Brief
Delay in Release
of Data for Construction, MSIO, Intl Trade, Wholesale Trade, Monthly Treasury, Retail Sales, Business Sales & Inventories, and Housing Starts Due to Lapse in Federal Government Funding.
U.S. Initial Unemployment Insurance Claims Slip
Initial claims for jobless insurance eased to 213,000 (-2.6% y/y) during the week ended January 12...
Passenger Car Registrations Hold to Low Ground in Europe
Passenger car registrations in Europe fell on a year-over-year comparison for the fourth consecutive months in December...
U.S. Import Prices Pulled Lower by Falling Oil Prices
Import prices fell 1.0% during December following a 1.8% November decline...
U.S. Home Builder Index Improves
The NAHB -Wells Fargo Composite Housing Market Index rose to 58 during January...
by Tom Moeller August 1, 2008
The value of construction put in place fell 0.4% during June after having been unchanged in May. The decline was as-expected.Year-to-year construction was down 5.9% but the level of activity so far this year has been roughly stable.
Residential building activity, however, continued to decline in June by 1.8%. Since it's peak it has fallen by more than one-third. Single-family construction continued quite weak as it fell another 3.7% (-39.1% y/y). Building activity on multi-family units edged down 0.4% (-8.0% y/y). Spending on improvements has been edging higher since last November but it's still off 2.0% y/y.
During the last twenty years there has been an 84% correlation between the q/q change in the value of residential building and its contribution to growth in real GDP.
The value of nonresidential building activity rose another 0.8% led by a 1.2% (37.9% y/y) jump in lodging spending. Spending on health care facilities rose 0.6% (10.0% y/y) but office construction was roughly unchanged (12.8% y/y).
Public construction fell a slight 0.2%. The y/y gain of 5.2% is down from 12.3% growth last year. Nevertheless, spending on office structures continued quite firm at 26.5% y/y. The value of construction spending on highways & streets was roughly unchanged y/y. (The value of construction on highways & streets is roughly one third of the value of total public construction spending.) Building activity of educational facilities fell 1.5% (+4.2% y/y) during June.
The more detailed categories of construction represent the Census Bureau’s 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.
Are Inflation Targets Good Inflation Forecasts? from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is available here.
| Construction (%) | June | May | Y/Y | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | -0.4 | 0.0 | -5.9 | -2.7 | 6.3 | 11.2 |
| Private | -0.4 | 0.0 | -9.6 | -6.9 | 5.5 | 12.7 |
| Residential | -1.8 | -1.1 | -26.7 | -19.8 | 1.0 | 14.9 |
| Nonresidential | 0.8 | 1.1 | 15.0 | 19.6 | 16.2 | 7.8 |
| Public | -0.2 | 0.1 | 5.2 | 12.3 | 9.3 | 6.2 |
