Every two weeks, we prepare a report focused on understanding market intelligence and analyzing construction industry data and trends.
This in-depth report is developed primarily for internal distribution, but because we want to keep construction professionals like you informed about the industry, we make this report available to anyone who's interested in reading it.
What's New In This Report?
Highlights
CPI-U, which measures inflation, increased 0.4% in October 2019, after being unchanged in September.
The ABI for October 2019 rose to 52.0 points, above 50 (neutral mark), with the South region and the Mixed Practice sector in the lead.
Construction Update
In October 2019, housing permits reflected an annual rate of 1.46M, 14.1% above their year-ago rate with annual increases in both Single-family and Multi-family permits.
Housing starts in October 2019 were 8.5% above their year-ago rate with 1.31M starts, with annual increases in both Single-family and Multi-family starts.
The Dodge Momentum Index (DMI) reached 152.6 in October 2019, 6.9% above the revised September score of 142.7.
Economic Update
In October 2019, the unemployment rate decreased to 3.6% after adding 128K jobs, 10K of which were in the Construction Industry.
Out of the large MSAs (1M+ population), 39 of 51 showed year-over-year unemployment rate decreases in September 2019 with Ames, IA, and Charleston-North Charleston, SC, having the lowest unemployment rate of 1.5% each.
