Construction spending slipped 0.8% in May from the previous month’s level, to an annual rate of $1.143.3 trillion, but rose 2.8% from the year-earlier figure, the Commerce Dept. has reported.
The department’s Census Bureau said in a report released on July 1 that nonresidential construction put in place in May was down 1.3% from April, to a $684.9-billion seasonally adjusted annual rate. But the total moved up 1.2% from May 2015.
Residential construction was roughly flat in May, month to month, to a rate of $458.3 billion, but it climbed 5.3% from the year-earlier level, the Census Bureau said.
Ken Simonson, Associated General Contractors of America’s chief economist, was generally upbeat about the May numbers and pointed to the 8.2% year-over-year increase in total construction for the first five months of 2016.
Simonson said in a statement that mild winter weather followed by heavy rains in some regions “has probably distorted monthly spending patterns but shouldn’t mask the robust widespread growth in demand for construction so far this year."
At the Associated Builders and Contractors, which monitors nonresidential construction, Chief Economist Anirban Basu noted in a statement that the category’s current inflation-adjusted spending “is essentially unaltered from a year ago.”