AGC released analyses in the past week of construction job changes from August 2009 to August 2010 in every state and in 337 metropolitan areas. Although only one-fifth of the states (nine, plus the District of Columbia) and one-sixth of the metro areas (56) had year-over-year job increases, these were the highest totals since the fall of 2008.

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Have contractors stopped buying high and selling low? Maybe for the moment, but the pattern over the past year is still unfavorable.

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The Census Bureau's report on construction spending in June showed how uneven the industry's condition is. Total spending edged up 0.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $836 billion. (Seasonal adjustment takes into account variation due to normal weather or holidays. Annual rate allows ready comparison to full-year totals.) Despite the tiny gain for the month, the June total was 7.9 percent smaller than in June 2009.

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Construction materials costs have retreated after a yearlong advance. The producer price index (PPI) for inputs to construction-a weighted average of the prices of materials used in all types of construction, plus items consumed by contractors, such as diesel fuel-tumbled 0.9 percent, seasonally adjusted, in June. That was the largest one-month drop since February 2009 and followed a run of 10 price increases in the previous 14 months.

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Construction employment shrank by 35,000 jobs in May, seasonally adjusted, virtually wiping out the 41,000-job gain recorded in the previous two months (27,000 in March and 14,000 in April), the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported on June 4. Despite appearances, it is too early to conclude that the industry is on a renewed downtrend after finally adding jobs.

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Several positive indicators for construction have popped up in the past few weeks. The most prominent of these shoots is the employment report for March, which showed construction added 15,000 jobs, seasonally adjusted-the first increase in two years. Surprisingly, the gain was entirely in nonresidential construction (+25,000), while residential construction, which has been performing better in recent months, slipped (-10,000).

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Now that President Obama has signed both the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, contractors have two separate but related issues to focus on. First, what are the requirements, risks and opportunities for employers? Second, how will the legislation change the demand for different kinds of structures?

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Materials prices are on the rise. The retail price of on-highway diesel fuel hit a 16-month high of $2.90 per gallon, 86 cents (42 percent) higher than a year ago, the Energy Information Administration reported on Monday. Copper and aluminum futures prices on Monday also neared the highest level since the autumn of 2008. Nucor announced on Monday that it was raising rebar prices $25 per ton immediately and a further $50 on April 1. Wallboard manufacturers announced in February that they would raise prices 20 percent on March 15. Lumber and plywood prices have also touched multi-year highs recently.

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January Construction Retreats One Percent read the headline on McGraw-Hill Construction (MHC)'s February 19 press release. "January construction starts higher," Reed Construction Data proclaimed on February 11. Far from being anomalous, the difference in direction was typical of these two measures of construction spending. Census Bureau numbers usually tell yet another story. Why?        

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The pain continues unabated for construction companies and workers. The industry lost another 75,000 employees in January, seasonally adjusted, virtually unchanged from the monthly average of 77,000 over the past 12 months, according to data the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released on February 5.

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