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Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller February 1, 2018
The value of construction put-in-place increased 0.7% (1.6% y/y) during December following a 0.6% November gain, initially reported as 0.8%. A 0.5% gain in activity had been expected in the Action Economics Forecast Survey. During all of last year, construction increased 3.8%, the smallest increase of the economic expansion.
Private sector building activity rose 0.8% (0.9% y/y) as residential building activity improved 0.5% (5.4% y/y). Single-family building activity rose 0.4% (9.2% y/y) but multi-family construction jumped 2.6% (3.2% y/y). The value of improvements edged 0.2% lower (0.7% y/y). Nonresidential building activity increased 1.1% (-3.4% y/y). Educational building jumped 4.1% (1.2% y/y) while transportation construction was little changed (32.1% y/y). Office building strengthened 4.2% (-5.2% y/y), and commercial construction gained 1.6% (5.4% y/y). Power facility construction fell 0.5% (-11.5% y/y) and factory construction eased 0.5% (+3.2% y/y).
The value of public sector building activity nudged 0.3% higher (4.3% y/y). Office building fell 1.5% (+14.2% y/y). Educational building increased 1 .6% (9.4% y/y) and highway & street construction improved 0.3%, unchanged y/y. Conservation & development facility construction rose 1.8% (+3.7% y/y), while power plant construction declined 10.3% (+12.7% y/y).
The construction spending figures are in Haver's USECON database and the expectations reading is contained in the AS1REPNA database.
Construction Put in Place (SA, %) | Dec | Nov | Oct | Dec Y/Y | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | 0.7 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 1.6 | 3.8 | 6.5 | 10.7 |
Private | 0.8 | 0.7 | -0.6 | 0.9 | 5.8 | 9.2 | 12.9 |
Residential | 0.5 | 1.1 | -1.0 | 5.4 | 10.6 | 10.5 | 14.2 |
Nonresidential | 1.1 | 0.3 | 0.0 | -3.4 | 0.6 | 7.7 | 11.5 |
Public | 0.3 | 0.1 | 2.4 | 4.3 | -2.5 | -1.2 | 5.1 |