“Despite the omicron variant, ongoing supply chain issues, elevated energy and materials prices and rampant staffing shortages, the average nonresidential contractor remains upbeat,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu.
The not seasonally adjusted national construction unemployment rate plunged 4.6% in December 2021 from a year ago, down from 9.6% to 5%, while all 50 states had lower unemployment rates over the same period, according to a state-by-state analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data released by Associated Builders and Contractors.
“There are at least a dozen explanations for today’s employment report, which indicates that nonresidential construction employment declined in January even as many other segments added many jobs,” said ABC Chief Economist Anirban Basu.
‘Tis the season for reflection and, keeping with tradition, we’re revisiting the most viewed – and listened to – elements of R&R from 2021. This year we’ve expanded our purview, adding two categories (news stories and podcast episodes) and sharing top-15 lists instead of top-10.
Even if you don’t believe millennials are ready for the business of restoration, realize that they are already opening businesses and that many restorers are retiring. Consider millennials your peers and help the industry transition well into the future by helping them to succeed in business.
This special-edition episode features a prestigious panel of Ladder Award finalists from 2021 and 2020. They share innovative ways they are helping advance the property restoration industry, as well as their vision for its future.
Dr. Anirban Basu, chief economist with Associated Builders and Contractors, shares the latest construction confidence index and backlog indicator results, plus what they mean. He also covers a big area of opportunity for restoration and remediation contractors: adaptive reuse of existing structures.
While this article is just a snapshot of the data captured in R&R’s 2021 State of the Industry study, the trends largely continue to be the same. In addition to biggest challenges, third party administrators, spending habits and future predictions, this year we explore the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on restoration companies.
One of the challenges in making predictions is being blindsided by items you could never have seen coming. Before last year, imagine someone telling you the country would be shut down for months, you could not go to a restaurant or church service for months, college basketball would stop the week before March Madness, and most schools would be closed for months (or in some cases, a year).
