Interesting insights for 2023 and 2024 were presented by Anirban Basu, chief economist for ABC, in the recent “2024 Economic Update and Forecast” webinar.
Newsworthy items included construction growth in a majority of sectors, as well as improvement with supply-chain issues.
Despite a declining backlog, residential building enjoyed a 11.4% increase since February 2020. Manufacturing sectors also reported a strong increase of 164.2%. And office space production grew by 3.8%.
While construction wages have increased by 4.9%, it remains a challenge to finance jobs as well as find workers to fill those jobs. Basu suggests a recession is imminent in 2024 but believes it will be small and short. But he countered by saying, “the economy has been much stronger along more dimensions than I expected.”