NAHB Releases New Home Building Employment Estimates by State

The new NAHB study presents the most recent and comprehensive estimates of home building employment, including self-employed workers, by state. NAHB Economics estimates that out of 9.8 million people working in construction in 2016, more than 3.8 million people worked in residential construction, accounting for 2.5% of the US employed civilian labor force. These numbers…

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Broad-Based Price Increases Plague Building Materials in February

Prices paid for building materials increased across the board in February. The indexes for softwood lumber (+5.6%), gypsum products (+4.2%), OSB (+3.1%), ready-mix concrete (+0.4%), and inputs to residential construction less labor (+1.0%) all increased, according to the latest Producer Price Index (PPI) release by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The percentage increase in softwood…

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