This week the Maui County Council voted to overturn Mayor Mike Victorino’s veto of a bill that would halt all new hotel construction for the next two years. Councilmember Keani Rawlins-Fernandez, who introduced the bill, said that this isn’t intended to stop tourists from coming to the island; they only want to give the county more time to figure out how to accommodate the increasing number of tourists, as well as find more available low-income housing for Maui residents.

The National Home Builders Association says increasing prices could cause the average new single-family home to increase by $18,600. Lumber prices hit record highs in May of 2021. During a brief price drop, the construction industry hoped to return to pre-pandemic numbers; unfortunately, costs snapped back up.

According to the Commerce Department on January 3rd, Spending on construction projects rose 0.4% in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.63 trillion, less than the Wall Street Journal’s prediction of a 0.7% increase.

On December 15th, Japan's Prime Minister admitted overstatements by the government regarding the value of some construction orders; this struck a blow to investors and economists' confidence in the country's official statistics.

Census data from last week shows a 12% jump in housing starts in November over October; this occurred amid construction industry struggles such as the labor and materials shortage and all-time highs in construction costs.

Waco, Texas builders feel the heat of post-pandemic materials and labor price hikes. But perhaps no job site feels the pain more than the Cameron Park Zoo, a non-profit that relies on fundraising to expand. The zoo began construction with financing in place—prices spun out of control.

Boston courts failed to charge the Atlantic Coast Utilities construction company with the late February deaths of two contractors. However, the business owner and an employee did catch four counts of perjury charges related to the deaths.

Across the United States, in the wake of materials shortages, thieves have been ransacking job sites. They don’t just steal power tools; they take lumber, fixtures, and steel.

UC Santa Barbara students opposed construction of a building expected to house 4,500 students; some refer to it as a prison. The architect resigned in the cloud of a student petition that already contains over 12,000 signatures.

According to research from NordLocker, ransomware targets construction companies hardest out of 35 different industries. This information comes from an analysis of 1,200 global companies targeted by ransomware between 2020 and 2021.

Flexbase, a construction technology company, plans to offer something new: a particular credit card for the construction industry. The card provides up to 60 days of interest-free financing.

A northern Nevada rancher plans to block construction of the United States’ largest lithium mine with a lawsuit; he alleges a conflict of interest on the part of the project’s chief consultant that downplays potential harm to water resources and wildlife.

According to a report issued Monday from the U.S. Commerce Department, construction spending had a surprising 0.5% drop in the month of September to an annual rate of $1.574 trillion. The rate had grown by 0.1% in August.

With low mortgage rates, plentiful jobs, and the market’s desire for more space, the housing boom in the United States stands at record levels. Last week the National Association of Home Builders announced a 7% jump from August; such levels haven’t existed since the housing boom in 2007.

Despite supply chain slowdowns and rising housing costs, builder confidence rose 4 points in the last month to 80 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. Though down from 85 in October 2020 and down from the record high of 90 in November, analysts consider anything above 50 to be positive.

Whether in board meetings or on job sites, construction employees at all levels express concern regarding the unprecedented hikes in building costs.

Construction economists use crane usage to gauge the state of the industry in specific locations. The Rider Levett Bucknall Crane Count, developed to measure that very thing, indicates that the stats from Q1 to Q3 of 2021 don't look great for commercial and public construction projects.

The Colombo crime family targeted a construction union in Queens (the union remains unnamed in the unsealed court paper). Mobsters demanded monthly payments from the union’s health fund. Andrew Russo made the list of defendants. He acted as the alleged boss of the family, accused of taking $10,000 a month from the union fund.

Amid a construction community atmosphere already stretched to breaking by labor shortages, a Seattle carpenters union takes an unexpected path by voting to go on strike. The results: 56% for, 44% against striking.

Amid declining prices of some building materials, such as lumber, since their early 2021 peaks, other materials costs remain at record highs. Steel, paint, fixtures, and appliances top the list. As a result, economists believe exorbitant prices will persist.

In a complaint filed last week, the condo board of 432 Park Avenue says that more than 1,500 construction errors, some deemed to be “life safety issues,” riddle their 96-story building. The building once stood as a media darling with celebrity tenants such as Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez.

The construction industry needs new blood; labor shortages exist everywhere, and methods of attracting new hires increase in complexity.

Despite a tough eighteen months for the construction industry, residential construction proceeds at a break-neck pace. But increased costs and uncertain build schedules increase the difficulty of home construction. Construction spending sits 8.2% higher than one year ago.

Last week, Hyundai Heavy Industries purchased Doosan Infracore, creating a combined company in the top ten largest global construction equipment manufacturers. The plan makes Doosan Infracore a subsidiary of Hyundai Genuine group, of which Hyundai Construction Equipment is also a subsidiary. Both Doosan and Hyundai are South Korean companies. After the purchase, they will continue to operate independently.

According to new data released from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on August 12, nonresidential construction prices have increased 23.4% since this time last year, including a 0.8% increase over last month.

The $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed in the Senate last week includes an investment in construction technology of $100 million spread over five years. The government intends to focus the funds on digital construction technologies such as BIM, 3D modeling software, and digital project management.

The Commerce Department released a report on August 2nd indicating that construction spending inched up a slight 0.1% in June; this was a tradeoff as private projects increased and public sector construction projects dropped.

According to the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) report in conjunction with the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the national construction unemployment rate dropped 2.6% in June compared to the same month last year. Forty-five states experienced decreases, though the rates have not rebounded back to pre-pandemic levels.

Based in Oakland, CA, the construction technology company Mighty Buildings raised $22 million last month, increasing its total funding to more than $100 million as it goes after the sustainable construction market. Mighty Buildings pursues a goal of creating net-zero carbon emission homes by 2028.

The Architecture Billings Index (ABI) released its report for May 2021, showing that the demand for architectural services is at a record high. The ABI measures demand through tracking signed contracts. It hit 58.5 in May, up from 57.9 in April. (Anything above 50 indicates an increase over the previous month. Anything lower than 50 marks a decrease.)

According to a new report from Associated Builders and Contractors, the construction industry—already short on workers before the pandemic—needs to hire 430,000 more laborers in 2021 for a total of 1,000,000before the end of 2022.

Dropping to the lowest price they've been since January, lumber fell 4% on Friday to $689 per thousand board feet; this represents a dramatic drop over the last nine weeks after the prices topped out at $1670 on May 7th.

The Manhattan Federal Court sentenced Vito Nigro, a New York construction executive, to 51 months in prison for evading taxes on more than $1.8 million in bribes he received from subcontractors.

Habitat for Humanity, the charity organization that builds homes for the disadvantaged, faces financial trials. The first blow came from the virus; safety precautions severely reduced the number of volunteers they could have onsite. The second came from the lack of revenue from closed ReStores, a chain of reuse stores Habitat for Humanity runs to partially fund their projects. The third blow came from supply chain issues—the same issues faced by all residential contractors.

After the federal government passed a bipartisan deal for $973 billion in infrastructure spending last Thursday, the S&P 500 posted its best week since April, closing out Friday at new record highs. Shares of construction giants Caterpillar, Martin Marietta Materials, and Vulcan Materials traded higher on the news.

Contractors know about massive price jumps in materials. Still, a new report from the federal government shows that non-residential construction input prices rose 23.9% in May over May of 2020, and the prices rose 4.8% since April.

A new report from the National Association of Realtors revealed a slowdown in construction over the past twenty years—primarily due to focus on single-family homes rather than multi-family houses. The result: a 5.5-million-unit shortfall.

Like the United States post-pandemic recovery plan, the European Union passed an €800 billion program to speed the continent's recovery. But now, construction executives and organizations warn that a rapid rise in construction costs may cause a significant speed bump in that plan and may stop the recovery altogether.

The economy added 559,000 jobs in May, and the unemployment rate fell from 6.1% to 5.8%. However, despite the job gains and a massive labor shortage that has plagued construction, the industry lost a net 20,000 jobs; this comes after an April with no increase in construction jobs.

The exploding residential market continues to skyrocket, rising as quickly as manpower and material supplies can accommodate. And yet, new national data from the first quarter of 2021 shows that existing homes sell for higher prices than new construction.

Due to high demand, of all industries, construction perhaps most seamlessly weathered COVID-19. Hence, construction workers enjoy premium pay. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) forecasts construction employment adding 4% year-on-year from now through 2029, compared to a national job average of 3.7%. The BLS expects to see the most growth in solar photovoltaic installers (up 50.5%), tile and stone workers (up 8.6%), and electricians (up 8.4%).

With single-family home starts down 13% in April, compared to March, many potential homeowners wonder why a slowdown persists during a period of high demand. The answer: lack of workers and scarcity of building materials.

A recent consensus from the American Institute of Architects predicted an 11% decrease in office construction. Tech-driven cities such as Manhattan, Boston, Seattle, Los Angeles, and the Bay Area drive the growth. Builders constructed 25 million square feet of office space in the first two months of 2021, with more coming.

While great economic times foster magnificent architecture—society builds few massive edifices during food shortages—two rising theories posit that booms in architecture could indicate a coming economic bust. More than that, one such theory blames architecture itself for the downturn.

The Dodge Momentum Index, a monthly measurement of nonresidential building projects in planning, jumped 8.6% last month, climbing to 162.4 over 149.5 in March; this happened despite hitting its nine-year low in January; the index grew 77% over the previous three months. Healthcare and laboratory projects lead the index, while commercial projects have slipped with fewer warehouses in production. Overall, the index sits 31% higher than in April of last year.

According to data from the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC), spending declined in 11 of the 16 nonresidential subcategories. Private nonresidential spending fell 0.9%, while public nonresidential dropped 1.5% in March.

Despite the massive worker shortage plaguing construction, new figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that homebuilders have slowed their hiring pace. The trend moves upward at a crawling pace.

With a season of extreme shortages in new home availability, promising signs of increased production might catch up with demand.

Curri, a new company referred to as the “Uber of Construction,” gains investors as it seeks to disrupt a stagnant distribution model.

Nobody in the construction industry sees the material shortage as new news; lumber has climbed more than 300% since March of 2020. According to a survey from the Associated Building Contractors, lack of materials competes for top concern among contractors, alongside the labor shortage.

Autodesk published its 2021 Construction Outlook, which analyzes the current construction situation and forecasts the upcoming year. In an interview with Forbes, Autodesk Senior VP and General Manager, Jim Lynch, gave an optimistic assessment: “The big takeaway is that the market is back.”

U.S. housing construction grew at the fastest pace since 2006 in March as builders recovered from the February weather-related slowdowns. Builders began construction on new homes at a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.74 million units in March, up 19.4% over February when building fell 11%. As the fastest boom in growth since the 2006 housing craze, some economists are pleased while others are wary.

Despite the blockbuster residential market, as a post-vaccination country re-opens for business as usual, construction industry problems remain. Two issues hang over the construction industry's head: material and supply chain and labor shortages.

The unemployment rate dropped to 6%, adding 916,000 jobs to the economy. The construction industry, with 110,000 new jobs, represented a significant portion of the employment growth.

The massive boom in residential construction remains in the news, even with a slowdown at the beginning of 2021. Most anticipate the market to stay strong throughout the remaining year.

This week in Texas, a federal grand jury returned an indictment on Michael Angelo Padron with one conspiracy charge to commit wire fraud and eight counts of wire fraud, along with two co-conspirators. According to the charges, Padron placed a service-disabled veteran, Ruben Villareal (one of the co-conspirators), as frontman at his construction company to acquire Small Business Association contracts reserved for veteran-owned businesses.

The residential housing market, which has boomed for the last year, dropped 10.3% in February, a significant fall. Applications for new homes also fell by 10.8%.

Both Dodge Data and Analytics (Dodge) and Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) released reports this week that predict 2021's construction industry positives and negatives.

2021 looks to be a challenging year for construction, reports Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), a worldwide real estate conglomerate. JLL predicts a 5% to 8% drop in overall nonresidential construction.

The IRS convicted Hugo Cruz-Medina, a 33-year-old from Jacksonville, Fl., of several counts of mail and wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and illegally entering the country after being deported. He received a three-to-five-year sentence in federal prison and orders to pay his victims $3,266,506.33 in restitution, as well as a punitive amount of $1,408,712.08, which were the proceeds of his mail and wire fraud.

The Australian construction company Lendlease reported last week that its operating profit had fallen 26% from the same period in 2019, from AU $278 million (U.S. $219 million) to AU$205 million ($162 million.) It also cut its dividend by 50%.

Fortune magazine has published its annual ranking of most admired companies in all sectors, including construction and engineering. The category leader was AECOM, followed by Jacobs, Quanta Services, MasTec, and KBR.

The Associated General Contractors of America's "2021 Construction Hiring and Business Outlook" report uncovers a significant post-pandemic slowdown. The information also doesn't predict a return to typical construction in 2021.

According to the RLB Comparative Costs Index report, the boomtime residential market has driven up 2020 construction costs despite the pandemic slowdown in the first half of the year.

Autodesk, the maker of Revit and AutoCAD, has acquired Spacemaker, an artificial intelligence-based software company to increase automation opportunities for its portfolio.

2020 saw 106 new skyscrapers (buildings that stand over 200 meters in height) compared to 133 in 2019. This structural decline takes its place as the lowest since 2014.

Residential construction saw a 5.8% increase in home starts in December over the previous month, putting the seasonally adjusted annual rate at 1.67 million homes. Compared with 2019, home starts were up 17%, the highest level since 2006, before the burst of housing bubble.

In recent years, mining has seen a huge surge in success. 2020 represented a banner year for domestic mining (not just in ore but also in aggregates and quarries).

According to PRNewswire, a new report, “Construction in China – Key Trends and Opportunities to 2024” shows massive construction undertakings in the country in the first half of the decade. This occurs amid slowdowns in United States construction due to material shortages.

Following the Carbon Free Boston report in 2019, city officials are making carbon-neutral plans by 2050. Emissions from buildings account for more than 70% of the city’s emissions, Boston feels it’s time to clear the air.

Last month saw a drop in 140,000 jobs, attributable to increases in COVID cases and efforts to contain the pandemic, said a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, there was good news for construction: the industry's jobs grew 51,000 in December.

The Q4 2020 numbers were released from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Commercial Construction Index and reported that the number of material shortages was growing at an alarming rate, primarily due to the pandemic.

Covid cases are reaching massive numbers and breaking records again for the first time since the spring’s initial surge. Construction companies are looking for ways to survive the potential drought of work that may occur if lockdowns continue—as seen in the tens of millions of people under stay-at-home orders in California last week.

After a record 6,100,000 new jobs added to the US economy in October, November saw a massive plunge, gaining only 245,000 jobs, which is the slowest month’s gain in six months.

Despite the reopening of the economy in most areas and the lowered death tolls in most regions, there are some effects of Covid-19 that are likely going to last into 2021 for the construction industry.

According to a new study from Advisor Smith, several of the country's highest-paid jobs that don't require a degree are in the construction industry.

New York, a market that can be counted on to do sizeable multi-billion dollar deals every season, reports that they’re facing a significant downturn in mostly non-residential construction.

US industrial construction is having a good year, all things considered. A report from the consulting group of Cushman and Wakefield shows that the industrial market has produced a total of 159 million square feet in the last three consecutive quarters. The third quarter made 61 million alone, which is 16% higher than in the same quarter in 2019.

According to a new report in the New York Times Thursday, residential construction rose 2.1% from July to August, while non-residential—which was already suffering—dropped another 4%. The one exception to this is distribution centers, which continue to be on the way up.

A study from McKinsey reported that a large majority of projects miss their deadlines by 40% or more, which causes all sorts of headaches—most of them financial. Some of the most common reasons for construction mistakes are:

According to Dodge Data and Analytics, nonresidential construction starts fell by 19% in the first five months of the year. In places where lockdowns were mandated, including construction jobs, work levels dropped as much as 80%. The Dodge study indicated that the delays were due to labor shortage, new safety procedures, and lack of materials and equipment due to transportation disruptions.

Core, a new app and online site, is designed to connect construction laborers with contractors and builders in need of workers. It has gotten the eye of several influential Silicon Valley investors.

Despite the many issues that are plaguing 2020, the Marcum Commercial Construction Index for the second quarter reports that the industry is maintaining a relatively even keel. In particular, unemployment in the construction industry has dropped back down to 8.9% after seeing record highs in April and March. The unemployment rate across all sectors is at 10.2%.

We all know that Covid-19 had a significant impact on the construction sector (though some places weathered the storm better than others), but some sectors of the industry have been harder hit than others. A recent survey from the consulting group Appleseed Strategy highlights where the hard hits have been and where the opportunities are—because it’s not all bad.

A new survey from Dodge Data and Analytics shows ten cities that saw the biggest hit from the coronavirus shutdown, in terms of new construction.

According to the most recent report from Dodge Data and Analytics, total construction starts for July fell 7%. This sharp drop was led primarily by a 31% dip in the non-building segment. (Nonbuilding consists of industrial, roads, public works, etc.) Nonresidential starts rose 3% and residential dropped 2%.

In a campaign organized by the European Architect’s Journal and backed by 14 Sterling Prize winners, a new push is being made to get businesses to renovate existing buildings rather than tear them down and rebuild—to fight climate change.

The architecture industry, which has long been looked at as a predictor of what the future holds, not just for construction but for the economy at large, is making some exciting moves as it recovers from Covid-19.

A new report out from Moody’s Analytics does not paint a rosy picture for the immediate future of America’s real estate and construction sectors. In a year that was supposed to have been record-breaking, real estate projects are estimated to move forward again at a pace that is slower than the recovery after the Great Recession.

This week the Department of Commerce reported that the economy shrank at the fastest rate ever recorded between April and June—32.9% in the second quarter of 2020. While construction has resumed and many projects are moving forward at the pace they were pre-pandemic, the overall toll that Covid-19 has had on the construction industry has been severe.

According to a new report from the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the decrease in construction spending that began with the pandemic is likely to continue well into 2021. Among all construction sectors, the commercial sector (which includes office, retail and hotels) will be the hardest hit, with spending projected to decline 12% this year and 8% more in 2021, according to the AIA Consensus Construction Forecast.

As the economy reopened for most states in June, there was a 17.3% upswing in housing construction, but the total production is still lower than it was before the lockdown.

We’ve heard conflicting reports over the past several months—sometimes the forecast is dire and other times it’s positive. But one area where there is definite suffering is in the architecture sector, which many consultants believe is the proverbial canary in the coalmine of construction: after all, if architects have nothing to design, then what is there to build?

Caterpillar, a stock that has been struggling for several quarters, was upgraded by forecasters and grading agencies on Wednesday, but that didn’t lead to much in trading shares. According to Barron’s, investors seem to have left construction equipment companies for dead.

Construction company No Limits Construction might need to revisit their hiring practices and do some more background checking on their new employees.

According to data collected by Procore and the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC), levels of production in the construction sector are returning to where they were before the coronavirus widespread outbreak in March.

According to business consultancy group McKinsey & Co, the construction industry will radically change as it undergoes nine shifts caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The report, The Next Normal of Construction, explains how “disruption is reshaping the world’s largest ecosystem.”

A 2018 study from Fails Management Institute (FMI), a management consultancy group, reported that 55% of engineering and construction firms were “actively seeking new technology solutions.” But at the same time, a 2019 study from Dodge Data and Analytics found that 90% of the contractors surveyed “do not specifically budget for innovation.”

The USG and U.S. Chamber of Commerce Commercial Construction Index, a gauge for the outlook and confidence in the commercial construction industry, dropped massively from 74 in Q1 to 56 in Q2. The reason for the dive is that two of the index’s three main indicators—confidence in new business and revenue expectations—both fell 26 points, to 50 and 44, respectively. The third indicator, backlog, dropped 3 points, to 73.

U.S. home construction rebounded 4.3 per cent in May after steep declines caused by shutdowns due to the coronavirus.