Jan. 2017 Value of New Construction Shows Slight Monthly Decline, Up 3.1% YOY

Construction spending during Jan. 2017 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,180.3 billion, -1% below the revised December estimate of $1,192.2 billion, according to the most recent data available from the U.S. Commerce Dept. The January figure is 3.1% above the Jan. 2016 estimate of $1,144.9 billion.

Private construction. Spending on private construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $911.6 billion, 0.2% above the revised December estimate of $909.4 billion. Residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $476.4 billion in January, 0.5% above the revised December estimate of $474 billion. Nonresidential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $435.3 billion in January, nearly the same as the revised December estimate of $435.4 billion.

Many of the key construction niches within private nonresidential construction showed declines in January. At $67.9 billion, office construction was down 0.5%. Private construction of health-care and educational facilities was also down in January, with -0.2% and -0.5% declines, respectively. Office, educational and health-care construction all had solid YOY growth numbers with office (+33.9%) and educational construction (+15.7%) leading the way.

Public construction. In January, the estimated seasonally adjusted annual rate of public construction spending was $268.7 billion, 5% below the revised December estimate of $282.8 billion. Educational construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $69.2 billion, 2.7% below the revised December estimate of $71.1 billion, but showed a 1.8% increase over Jan. 2016.