This is a post from Jim Haughey's blog that covers the US construction industry.
Jim Haughey is the Chief Economist for Reed Construction Data and has over thirty years experience as a business economist, including twenty years monitoring the construction market. He has a Ph.D. degree in economics from the University of Michigan and has previously taught at the University of Michigan, Ohio University, Michigan State University and the University of Massachusetts.
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Construction Industry Forecasts
Notes from Jim Haughey - Feb 23, 2010
Construction jobs are likely to plunge again in February and rebound sharply in March. With normal March weather, the rebound could be very large since there was clearly some weather-related construction job decline during December and January as well. The underlying trend in jobs throughout the December-March period has to be found in the withholding tax data which covers a full month rather than just a single week. For total employment, the jobs trend is very modest improvement. For construction, the jobs trend over the same period is continued small monthly job losses but at a pace far less than the huge January-February job losses reported.
Similar weather-related job flip-flops have happened before. In 2006 when the economy was expanding steadily, the job change in a stormy January was reported to be a 206,000 job loss. The February report showed a gain of 705,000 jobs. This was the result of comparing the survey week in each month rather than comparing the two full months. Tax withholding data showed reasonably steady gains throughout the two month period.
