Contractor confidence rebounded in January despite labor shortages, rising costs and forecasts predicting an economic downturn, says Anirban Basu, chief economist for the Associated Builders and Contractors.
ABC’s Construction Confidence Index for January shows more contractors expecting growth in sales, profit margins and staffing over the next six months compared to December. Still, those expectations, based on surveys of nonresidential contractors and calibrated on a 0-100 scale, were still slightly down from a year earlier. Basu says January's readings are the highest since the first half of last year.