Your source for construction industry news in the Carolinas
FMI recently released its 2024 North American Engineering and Construction Outlook: Third Quarter. According to the report, total construction spending is expected to reach $2 trillion in 2024, a 5% increase over 2023. However, this signals a slowing growth trend, with future increases likely to stabilize from 3% to 5% over the next five years….
Special to GroundBreak Carolinas: Dr. Bruce Yandle, Alumni Distinguished Professor of Economics Emeritus, Clemson University, shares economic insight for construction leaders in the Carolinas. Getting Started: The Current Picture With 2024 at the halfway mark, we find a national economy registering a low pulse-beat and an improved outllook on the inflation front. First quarter real…
GroundBreak Carolinas is pleased to share thoughts and insights from key construction industry leaders in the Carolinas. Keith Poole, President and Chief Operating Officer of Trehel, offers a commercial contractor’s perspective as we enter the second half of 2024. What’s your outlook on the construction industry for the second half of 2024? If what we are…
Every year April brings beautiful images of new life, but this time we are also getting positive readings on the U.S. and regional economies. With the closing of 2023, we learned that real GDP growth for the nation perked along at a 2.5% rate, well above 2022’s 1.9% and a far cry from constant calls…
While contractors are optimistic about the future and an economic recovery should continue, the construction industry should expect long-term challenges in finding workers. “Construction employment has stalled in North Carolina due to the labor shortage. Nationally, the number of construction job openings is exceeding new hires and contractors are paying a wage premium for workers,”…
GroundBreak Carolinas is pleased to share thoughts and insights from key construction industry leaders in the Carolinas. Ben Wilhelm, President & COO of Charlotte-based McFarland Construction, offers his take on market trends as we enter 2024, and elaborates on one trend that he sees as both an “opportunity and a threat.” What is your outlook on the…
With horrible wars underway in the Middle East and Ukraine, a strong dose of compartmentalization is required to focus attention on the prospects for the economy. But if we are to make a difference to those in devastated places, it will be necessary for us to make the best of our own situation, to try…
With the arrival of September, football season and just three months to go before 2023’s books close, football fans are wondering which college teams in the reshuffling conferences will make it to the top 10, and recession watchers, looking at tea leaves and listening to Fed-speak, are trying to determine when and if the long-expected…
At this 2023 mid-point, a close look at the U.S. economy reveals uncertainty, bumps in the road ahead, and an economy that is so shot full of federal government intervention and stimulus that it is difficult to determine what is real and what is artificial.[1] Some but not all of this is understandable. After all,…
News that October existing home sales fell once more, giving a period of decline dating back to January 2022, is a reminder that when the Fed hits the brakes, it is housing and the construction economy that feels the sharpest pain. As National Association of Realtors chief economist Lawrence Yun put it: “More potential homebuyers…
