Nonresidential builders and their subcontractors added 10,000 more jobs in September after two months of no net hiring according to the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Homebuilding jobs fell another 20,000 bringing the decline in the last three months to nearly 50,000. These divergent trends will continue for several more months and then begin to converge. Housing starts are near the bottom in this construction cycle and the rapid growth in nonresidential building starts has begun to ebb in the Reed Construction Data Monthly starts reports.
Data revisions in the September jobs report erased the threat of a rapidly weakening economy. The job change in August was revised from -4,000 to +89,000 with a correction of a seasonal adjustment error in government employment. 25,000 more jobs were added to Julys’ job count and 110,000 new jobs were reported for September. This will be a big boost to business confidence which had plunged with the twin shocks from the August problems with closing commercial mortgages and other routine business loans and the erroneous August job count.
