Health Care Construction a Big Winner in 2017

Construction spending wound up the year with positive numbers for December and an increase in overall spending for the year.  The U.S. Census Bureau tallied up the dollars spent for privately and publicly funded construction across all sectors at $1.231 trillion.  This is a 3.8 percent advance over the $1.186 trillion spent in 2016.

Overall construction dollars spend in December were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.253 trillion, up 0.7 percent from November, and 2.6 percent higher than a year earlier.  The year's biggest gain was in health care construction, up 13.5 percent year-over-year, while construction for sewage and waste disposal lost the most ground, down 13.5 percent.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, a total of $95.310 billion was spent on construction in December.  The November figure was $104.289 billion and in December 2016, $93.776 was spent.

The value of private construction put in place in the year just ended was $950.7 billion.  This was an increase of 5.8 percent compared to the $898.7 billion spent throughout 2016.  Residential construction for the year cost $515.9 billion, up 10.6 percent from $466.6 billion in 2016.  Health care construction and sewer/waste disposal were the big winner and loser here as well, up 14.0 percent and down 48.4 percent respectively.

In December, private construction expenditures were at a seasonally adjusted $963.2 billion, up 0.8 percent compared to November and 6.2 percent from the previous December.  On an unadjusted basis there was $74.573 billion spent during the month, compared to $73,898 a year earlier.

Privately funded residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted rate of $526.134 billion, with new single-family construction accounting for $275.636 billion of the total. Those figures are up 0.5 percent and 0.4 percent respectively compared to the November numbers and 6.2 percent and 8.7 percent higher year-over-year.  Expenditures for multi-family construction were up 2.6 percent month-over-month and 4.6 percent on an annual basis.

Non-adjusted spending for the month was $38.405 billion for all residential purposes, $20.573 billion for new single-family construction, and $4.905 for multi-family building.

Over the course of 2017, private spending on new single-family construction increased 9.1 percent compared to 2016.  Multifamily expenditures rose 3.7 percent.

The value of public construction in 2017 was $279.8 billion, a decline of 2.5 percent from the 2016 total of $287.0 billion. Much of the decrease came from the power construction segment, down 28.2 percent.  The largest advance here was also for health care construction, up 9.2 percent.

Publicly funded construction spending increased 0.3 percent during December to an annual rate of $290.047 billion, a 4.4 percent increase from the previous December.  Residential spending was down 1.3 percent from November but up 4.1 percent year-over-year.  The seasonally adjusted annual spending was $6.790 billion.