April 2019 Investment in Building Construction

Statistics Canada has released building construction investment statistics for April 2019 (https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3410017501). Overall building investment grew at a seasonally adjusted 2.5% to $14.87 billion current dollars over the March 2019 levels. Most of the growth came from residential construction, which was up 3.6% to $10.14 billion. Non-residential construction showed a more anemic growth rate of 0.4% to $4.73 billion. Investment in industrial construction also grew 0.4% to $892 million; commercial construction increased 0.3% to $2.71 billion and institutional/governmental increased 0.5% to $1.13 billion.

In constant (2012) dollars, netting out the effects of inflation, performance was somewhat better. Overall construction investment grew 2.8% to $12.49 billion, residential investment was up 3.9% to $8.41 billion, and non-residential grew by 0.7% to $4.08 billion. Within the non-residential construction sector, industrial investment increased by 0.7% to $771 million, commercial construction was up 0.6% to $2.32 billion and institutional/governmental investment grew to $989 million (an increase of 0.8%). In context, institutional governmental construction investment has actually fallen  by 0.8% compared to its December 2018 level of $997 million; this is likely an effect of the planned easing of government stimulus programs that were begun in 2008/2009 along with a generally more conservative approach to budgeting, which is focusing on deficit reduction.