Growth and Labor

So more mixed results on various monthly indexes I follow.   On the good side, the Dodge Momentum Index moved higher and the analysts are predicting that this trend will be stable, which is good news to some markets that had inconsistent and mostly soft 1^st quarters.  Also good?  Construction spending for Non Residential buildings is now up 9.8% year to date, and its 3 month average best since early 2009.  On the worrisome side is the labor issue.  Construction employment dropped from April to May and even though the year over year numbers are good, the overall metrics here are miserable.  There are 200,000 job openings and there’s no good remedy in sight for this one.  I think everyone in the industry shares this pain of needing qualified labor and I believe it is going to get tougher.  This surely bears watching.  If work keeps coming in, how do you get it processed, delivered, and installed if you are constantly fighting the need for qualified folks?

Elsewhere…

--  Congrats to everyone on the Glass Magazine Top 50 Glazier list.  The annual rundown is in the latest edition of the Magazine.  Some excellent companies populating that list and I am proud to say I know many and even do work for one! I’ll have my monthly review of the magazine on next week’s blog.

--  Also in the kudos mode… to the Mobius family at Garibaldi Glass.  This past Friday Garibaldi celebrated their 50^th anniversary with from what I was told was a great gathering.  I was honored to be invited and wish I could’ve attended but not meant to be.  But more importantly, to Carey, Chris and Craig a hearty congratulations for this awesome milestone!

 --  Hey don’t look now but gas prices are creeping up.  Almost to $3 a gallon in Michigan now and I think just a matter of time before pricing is back to the very high marks from 2 years ago.  And while that’s probably good for the overall economy, it’s back to sucking as a consumer.

--  For my fellow Road Warriors- interesting gallery on the top 14 Airport Hotels that have a cool design scenario.  Unfortunately I have stayed at none of them because I’m usually at a Holiday Inn Express and design is like 19^th on their list after making sure the pillow cases are mismarked “firm” and “soft”- (I say mismarked because they are never right) Anyway check out the article and if you stayed at any let me know!

--  And last this week… as I have noted here many times, I am a big fan of the show “The Americans” and I know several of you watch it as well.  While this season was good, it surely to me wasn’t great or as good as past seasons.  So a bit of a letdown for me, but maybe it was just me… who knows.  Hopefully the writers there can get back on track for their final 23 episodes before the show ends it run in 2018.

LINKS of the WEEK

--  Love this Text conversation between freaked out Mom and cool, calm daughter.

--  More fall out from the Stanford rape case and the Judge’s sentence.  Now jurors refusing to work in his courtroom.

--  A real cowboy saves the day.  This almost doesn’t seem real.

VIDEO of the WEEK

So given what happened at the Cincinnati zoo with Harambe the gorilla, seeing a video like this shows, animals do have instincts and thankfully some areas protect those who watch.  Now that said I am not a fan of these set up for the animal sake, but glad no one got hurt here.