U.S. Industry Snapshot - March Nonresidential Construction Starts +60% M/M But -8% Y/Y and -20% Ytd

ConstructConnect announced today that March 2021’s volume of construction starts, excluding residential work, was $32.2 billion, an increase of +60.1% versus February’s distressed level of only $20.1 billion.

March Nonresidential Construction Starts +60% M/M But -8% Y/Y and -20% Ytd Graphic

Click here to read the complete March 2021 Industry Snapshot article, March Nonresidential Construction Starts +60% M/M, but -8% Y/Y & -20% Ytd – below is a short excerpt.

Total nonresidential (NR) groundbreakings in the latest month received boosts from three mega-sized projects, an auto plant expansion in Tennessee and two big hospital jobs located in Ohio and California.

View this information as an infographic.

Leaving aside the exceptional weakness of total NR starts in the previous month (February), latest March’s starts volume failed to match year-ago March’s level, falling short by -7.9%.

Also, year to date starts through the first quarter of 2021 were off by one-fifth (-20.0%) relative to January-March 2020.

Keep in mind that Q1 of last year was mostly ‘normal’ with respect to a broad range of economic indicators, including ‘starts’. The truly harmful effects caused by the outbreak of coronavirus infections occurred from Spring 2020 on. Proceeding further into 2021, a ‘diminishing base (or denominator) effect’ will put a better polish on year-over-year comparisons.

Click here to download the Construction Industry Snapshot Package – March 2021 PDF.

Click here for the Top 10 Project Starts in the U.S. – March 2021.

Click here for the Nonresidential Construction Starts Trend Graphs – March 2021.

Alex Carrick is Chief Economist for ConstructConnect. He has delivered presentations throughout North America on the U.S., Canadian and world construction outlooks. Mr. Carrick has been with the company since 1985. Links to his numerous articles are featured on Twitter @ConstructConnx, which has 50,000 followers.