Masonry Magazine September 2006 Page. 64
News
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AGC Jobs Report Shows Strength in Non-residential Construction
"The jobs report for July tells a tale of two construction industries," said Ken Simonson, Chief Economist for The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). Simonson was commenting on the August 4 employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that showed little change in overall construction employment for the fifth straight month. "Seasonally adjusted construction employment edged up by 6,000 jobs in July to 7,503,000, Simonson observed. "But non-residential building and specialty trades employment added nearly 16,000 employees. That was about one out of seven net new hires in the economy, even though these sectors are just 2 percent of total non-farm employment. "Although the overall employment report showed only modest growth, with a gain of 113,000 jobs, there are still many industries that are generating construction activity," Simonson said. "Manufacturing, energy and power, business and leisure travel, and hospitals are all adding facilities at a high rate that should sustain further growth in construction jobs. "This jolt of good news is tucked into a report that also shows the slide in residential building and specialty trades employment, which together lost 9,000 jobs for the month," Simonson added. "I expect these categories will continue to hemorrhage jobs once current projects are completed. "The fifth construction employment category, heavy and civil engineering, shed 1,000 jobs," Simonson pointed out. "But I expect to see further growth in this sector. Architectural and engineering services added 10,000 jobs in July, seasonally adjusted. Employment in engineering and drafting services, a leading indicator for heavy and civil engineering, jumped by a hefty 16,000 from June to July before seasonal adjustment and is up by 35,000, or more than 4 percent, since July 2005." For more information on the AGC, visit www.agc.org.
MCAA Launches New Website Design
Tim O'Toole
Manager of Information
Technology, MCAA
After several months of planning, designing and coding, I am pleased to announce the launch of a new design for the Mason Contractors Association of America's (MCAA) website, www.masoncontractors.org. During the redesign process, we researched and reviewed hundreds of sites in the construction industry and across the World Wide Web, and we can confidently say ours is the best of the bunch. I am very proud of the final result and I hope you are as well. Our new site is crisper, cleaner and more informative than ever before, acting as a strong method of communication between the Association and our customers, the masonry industry and you, our members. This is the fourth design for our website in the five years of being online. I think you'll agree we've come a long way since the first MCAA website launched in late 2001. Hundreds of pages have been converted to the new design and more than 1,000 additional pages will be converted over the next few weeks. Dozens of exciting features are being planned and designed, and will be unveiled on the website over the course of the next year. I am fully aware of the trends the web is heading towards, and I intend to stay on top of these trends, implement them into our site, and provide an experience that no other website in the industry can bring to you. I have also tested our site with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), a website established by designers that validates the code used to design a website to make sure it is written properly and can be viewed without problem by all visitors. I am extremely happy to share that our site passed with flying colors, a prestigious honor many websites cannot claim. Please take a few minutes to visit our new website, www.masoncontractors.org, and check out the new design and features such as the Premier Supplier's Program, which lists industry suppliers that consistently support and promote the efforts of MCAA, and "The Fact of the Matter," a blog updated twice per week by MCAA Executive Director, Michael Adelizzi, which allows website visitors to read and respond to his thoughts on the MCAA and the masonry industry. The Association website receives more than 24 million hits each year from around the globe, and I expect that number to continue to dramatically increase as it has over the past three years. As always, if you have any questions, suggestions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact me at totoole@masoncontractors.org, or call (800) 536-2225.