Construction + Economy

  The 2025 Q3 Pulse of the Lighting Market report is produced by Channel Marketing Group with William Blair. The Q3 2025 report finds that the U.S. lighting industry faced a challenging, largely stagnant quarter, with most companies experiencing low or no growth, even after factoring in price increases driven by new tariffs. Increased prices [...]

  On Friday, the United States and China reignited their trade war in dramatic fashion, raising significant concerns about near-term economic volatility and long-term global implications. After months of relative calm, President Donald Trump announced the imposition of sweeping 100% tariffs on all Chinese imports, effective November 1, in retaliation for China’s newly tightened export [...]

  Data centers have rapidly reshaped the landscape of U.S. office construction, now representing a major share of spending and signaling a long-term shift in commercial real estate investment priorities. As of 2024, data centers accounted for 32% of new office construction spending in the U.S., a dramatic increase from just 5% a decade ago. [...]

  Traditional employment models are transforming into a dynamic, flexible system now known as the blended workforce. This evolution challenges old norms, such as long-term, full-time employment at a single company and offices filled exclusively with permanent staff, by integrating a variety of talent sources and technological advancements. A blended workforce is defined by the [...]

  Demand for U.S. industrial space—especially in the warehouse sector—fell for the first time in fifteen years during the second quarter of 2025, signaling a dramatic shift in commercial real estate dynamics since the pandemic-era boom. This decline was marked by an 11.3 million square foot contraction in the second quarter alone, with total net [...]

  Recent trends in U.S. housing construction highlight how single-family housing starts have declined while multifamily construction has grown—primarily in smaller and less densely populated markets—during the second quarter of 2025, according to the NAHB Home Building Geography Index (HBGI). Single-Family Construction Declines Single-family construction experienced declines in nearly every region during Q2 2025, signaling [...]

  The risk of a recession in September 2025 is elevated, with analysts citing a combination of slow job growth, persistent inflation, and rising tariffs as key factors pushing the U.S. economy toward a downturn. Some, like Moody’s Chief Economist Mark Zandi, suggest the U.S. is “on the precipice” of a downturn, with the period of greatest [...]

  Annual spending on home renovations and repairs in the United States is projected to grow at a much slower pace through the first half of 2026, according to the latest Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity (LIRA) from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University. The LIRA predicts that expenditures for improvements and [...]

  On July 2, 2025, The White House announced a new tariff agreement with Vietnam, representing the administration’s first trade deal in Asia outside of China, and signaling a notable shift in US trade policy in the region. The agreement sets a 20% tariff rate on certain goods. The primary goal of this deal is [...]