The Quikrete Industry Dashboard
As corporate earnings continue to roll out – including those of Builders FirstSource and BlueLinx Holdings — the Quikrete Industry Dashboard shows stock market growth on both a monthly and annual basis, and gains in Consumer Confidence.
On Friday, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released another in a long of reports showing a tight labor market: the national unemployment rate slipped slightly to 3.5 percent, down from 3.6 percent in June.
The metric has hovered between 3.4 percent and 3.7 percent since March of 2022.
The report revealed Construction employment continued to trend up in July (+19,000), in line with the average monthly gain of 17,000 in the prior 12 months. Over the month, job growth occurred in residential specialty trade contractors (+13,000) and in nonresidential building construction (+11,000).
Elsewhere on the Quikrete Industry Dashboard, gas prices (the national average for a gallon of regular) increased to $3.82 on Aug. 3, compared with the previous month, according to the American Automobile Association’s tally. A year ago, the price for a gallon stood at $4.16.
The dial for Consumer Confidence Index is heading in a positive direction.
Since May, the index from the New York-based Conference Board rose from 102.5 to 110.1. in June, to 117.0 in the most recent reading in July (1985=100). “Consumer confidence rose in July 2023 to its highest level since July 2021, reflecting pops in both current conditions and expectations,” said Dana Peterson, chief economist at The Conference Board, which releases the closely watched monthly index. “Headline confidence appears to have broken out of the sideways trend that prevailed for much of the last year. Greater confidence was evident across all age groups, and among both consumers earning incomes less than $50,000 and those making more than $100,000.”
# # #
Coming next: The U.S. Census Bureau will release Advanced Monthly Retail Sales for NAICS 444 on Aug. 15. Residential construction numbers will follow on Aug. 16.