Construction led growth in the first quarter. Here’s why that won’t last.
By Victoria Stilwell | Bloomberg
Construction led growth at the start of the year, but don’t expect a repeat performance in the second quarter.
Real value added by the construction industry — a measure of how much that sector contributed to gross domestic product — climbed at a 9 percent annual rate in the first quarter, marking its eighth straight quarterly increase, Commerce Department figures showed Thursday. The industry helped prop up what proved to be lackluster growth in the first quarter, with construction contributing 0.36 percentage points of the 1.1 percent pace of GDP growth — a full third.