Study finds positive signs for Northeast construction market

Northeastern contractors plan to add staff members at a higher rate than their national counterparts, according to a new survey from the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) and Computer Guidance Corp.

In 2013, 42 percent of contractors in the Northeast anticipate hiring, compared to 31 percent nationwide. Northeastern contractors also proved more optimistic than firms in other regions about growth in the highway construction, transportation, and water and sewer construction market segments.

 Nationally, contractors predicted a positive trend in the private-sector construction market and a negative one in public-sector demand. Hopes for private construction were buoyed by hospital and higher-education construction — 36 percent of firms said money spent on such projects would grow in 2013, while just 26 percent said it would decline.

However, just 20 percent of firms expressed the belief that the overall construction market will grow this year. And 56 percent don’t anticipate it growing before 2015.

“While the outlook for the construction industry appears to be heading in the right direction for 2013, many firms are still grappling with significant economic headwinds,” AGC CEO Stephen Sandherr said in a news release.

The AGC is a Virginia–based construction-industry association representing nearly 30,000 firms nationwide. It partnered with the Arizona construction-management solutions firm Computer Guidance Corp. on the survey, which is titled “Tentative Signs of a Recovery: The 2013 Construction Hiring and Business Outlook.” More than 1,300 companies from Washington, D.C. and every state but Delaware took part in the survey during the last two weeks of November and first two weeks of December.

The entire survey is available at http://bit.ly/Szb7zD.

Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com