The Private Market and Economic Outlook (July 2022)

July 13, 2022

The Private Market and Economic Outlook (July 2022)

 

Each month we will report the Construction Put in Place numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau. The data includes design and construction spending for private and public sectors. The latest data was released on July 1, 2022, covering May 2022. For May of this year, total design and construction spending was up year-over-year by 9.7%, compared to the same month last year.  This is largely due to an ongoing trend of increased residential spending which is still up over 19%. Private non-residential is up just 3.7%, year-over-year and public spending is now showing a slight decline of -2.7% year-over-year compared to this time last year. 

The hottest market in the private, non-residential sector is manufacturing, which is up 23% from the previous year and lodging declined by 20%, based on not seasonally adjusted data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The possibility of a recession is still looming and labor shortages, supply chain disruptions and inflation remain as top concerns.  According to Building Design+Construction industry leaders are worried that they may no longer be able to pass along price increases to their clients.  This could result in a delay of projects or clients taking on more financial risk to win work at lower margins.

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