After experiencing relatively soft business conditions for much of the past winter and spring, many architecture firms saw signs of improvement in May. The AIA’s Architecture Billings Index (ABI) increased by more than three points to a score of 51.9 in May, where any score over 50 indicates billings growth.
As a positive sign of more business ahead in the pipeline, the design contracts index remained elevated in May as well, meaning that the value of new design contracts at firms is continuing to increase, as it has for the last 14 months.
Architecture firms located in the Northeast region have reported declining billings for the last nine months, which continued into May. In addition, firms located in the West reported a very modest decline this month, following two months of improvement, after experiencing softness the first two months of 2015. On the other hand, business conditions remain fairly strong at firms in the South, where they have seen an increase in billings every month for the last three years.
SOURCE: American Institute of Architects