CBRE: Great Recession’s Ripple Effect Continue for Construction Industry
CBRE, Los Angeles, said despite the global collapse of commodity prices, including many key inputs to construction, overall construction costs continue to rise nationwide in large part due to labor supply and demand dynamics that first surfaced during the recession and still have yet to resolve.
The company’s report (http://www.cbre.com/research-and-reports?PUBID=ddccafc7-8a18-42da-9af3-2f846ca2f1bf) noted the number of workers employed in construction-related occupations declined by nearly 985,000, or 15.8 percent, between 2005 and 2015 (Bureau of Labor Statistics). The RSMeans Construction Cost Index reported average total construction costs in the U.S. increased by 1.8 percent from 2015 and by 11.8 percent since 2011.
As a consequence, said Andrea Cross, CBRE Americas head of research, many markets have faced considerable labor shortages as new construction has picked up during the current economic cycle.
“The price of materials is just one driver of overall construction costs,” Cross said. “The cost of construction labor tends to be much more variable across geographies and over time, so it typically has a larger impact on overall cost trends. The collapse of the housing market and subsequent recession affected supply-side dynamics for new construction throughout the country, as a substantial number of construction workers left the industry during the downturn and never returned.”
When the number of new construction jobs began to grow without a proportional increase in qualified construction workers, tighter labor markets conditions pushed wages upward, Cross said. “The effect was compounded by increased fees from contractors, who charged more not just because they could now afford to be more selective, but also because they were stretched across a larger number of projects and would need to use less-experienced crews for some projects–allocating to those projects more man-hours than would be necessary with the best crews,” she said.
The report also noted the U.S. Producer Price Index showed dramatic price drops for many key construction materials including asphalt, diesel and iron and steel products. However, the overall price of construction materials has not fallen. The decline in some materials has been offset by increases in other construction products (glass, cement and construction sand, gravel and stone). In addition, the report noted local materials prices tend to be “sticky”–supply-chain issues, contract requirements, project timelines and other factors cause price changes to lag broader trends.
In some markets, construction cost increases have outpaced the national average in several major metropolitan areas since January 2011. In the past year, Atlanta and Los Angeles saw particularly steep CCI increases–3.8 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively. For most markets, annual construction cost inflation accelerated in January, following limited growth in 2015.
CBRE said while total construction costs have registered strong increases during the current economic cycle, appreciation has been significantly slower than in the previous cycle. Between January 2004 and January 2009, the national CCI increased by an average of 6.6 percent per year for a cumulative gain of 37.4 percent–more than three times the cumulative 11.8 percent increase from 2011-2015.
