Private Health Construction Leads Slow Building Market
New construction starts turned negative last November, slowing -0.4 percent from September. Health facilities construction shrank only -0.1 percent (Table 1).
In a turnaround from September, private health construction grew strongly, (0.6 percent) while public health construction starts collapsed -2.5 percent. September’s big jump in public construction looks to have been idiosyncratic.
Over the last twelve months, health facilities construction grew at a little less than half the rate of other construction. This relative reduction in capacity might be a sign that hospitals are pessimistic about future revenue.