ACEC released our latest monthly video economic update. Each month, ACEC Vice President of Private Market Resources Erin McLaughlin analyzes the latest public industry data and provides insights for the engineering and design industry,

Here are the toplines from this month’s update:

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) could add $132 billion and 82,000 jobs to the engineering and design sector, according to newly released estimates from the ACEC Research Institute and Rockport Analytics.

Total design and construction is up 7.5% from January through October 2021 over the same time-frame last year, per U.S. Census Bureau. That category remains driven by private residential spending which is up more than 24% over last year.

The economic growth outlook was downgraded in the latest National Association for Business Economics (NABE) survey. Respondents still expect economic growth and an increase in GDP, but point to inflation and vaccination challenges as obstacles. 

Supply of goods is expected to normalize in the first half of 2022, a majority of NABE respondents say. As engineers design for additional building for IIJA projects, this is especially important for construction materials in our industry.

Inflation won’t come down to 2% until the second half of 2023, NABE survey respondents predict. Two percent is the Federal Reserve’s stated goal, and respondents name supply chain bottle necks as the largest factor expected to keep inflation above that mark through the first half of 2022. Looking longer term, respondents said rising wages was the biggest factor over the next three years to keeping inflation above 2%. Wage pressure is one of the key challenges of the current engineering and design industry specifically.

The video series is one of ACEC’s resources for media and members, which also includes ACEC’s popular Private Industry Briefs. The briefs provide analysis on five key markets: Commercial and Real Estate; Intermodal and Logistics; Energy and Utilities; Health Care and Science+Technology; and  K-12 & Higher Education.

In March, the ACEC Private Market Resources team will hold a symposium on the commercial and residential real estate market in Scottsdale, Ariz.