investment in non-residential construction projects sees third quarter decline, says report

Although the nation’s inflation-adjusted gross domestic product has posted an impressive 3.5 percent gain from July to September of this year, investment in a number of non-residential construction structure projects saw a significant decline.

Those numbers, just released by the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis, show in particular a 4.9 percent drop in commercial and health care structures investment, along with 5 percent drop in manufacturing structures.

A much larger decline from the late summer of last year to the late summer of this year was seen in power and communications structures project investment, which dropped by exactly 13 percent.

Overall, investment in residential projects was also reported on the downside, with a decline of 4 percent. In that category, single-family structure investment was off by 6.2 percent, while multifamily structure investment declined by a significantly larger 16 percent.

Going in the other direction, government investment in structures overall was up by 14 percent, versus only 5 percent last year during the same time period.

In that category, investment in defense structures posted a 6.8 percent gain, while non-defense structure investment was up by a very large 45 percent.

A statement released from the Bureau of Economic Analysis notes that the overall increase in the nation’s gross domestic product “reflected positive contributions from a combination of both private and public spending.”

Even so, that 3.5 percent gross domestic product figure was down from the 4.2 percent recorded in the spring of this year.

By Garry Boulard

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