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US Construction Input Costs, Construction Labour Shortage
The prices of most building materials increased in April, according to the latest Producer Price Index release by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the count of unfilled jobs in the US construction sector increased in March and approached the post-Great Recession high level. According to the BLS Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey and…
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Canadian Railway Backlog Update
Last week the Canadian forest products industry received very welcome news from one of the nation’s railroads which could only leave them overjoyed: CN Rail says it will purchase 350 riserless centrebeam lumber cars to meet growing demand for forest products despite lower segment revenues in the first quarter, according to Canadian Press. Rail Logistics…
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The Value of Good Data
A few weeks ago Madison’s noticed some dangerous and alarming mis-reporting on the part of the other two publications which track North American lumber and panel prices. Subscribers who follow Madison’s on Twitter https://twitter.com/LumberNews and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/madison’s-lumber-reporter/ will have seen the drama unfolding. We think the comparative North America softwood lumber prices trend graphs below…
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CN Rail to Purchase 350 Lumber Cars to Meet Growing Demand of Canada’s Forest Industry
This morning the Canadian forest products industry received news from one of the nation’s railroads which could only leave them overjoyed: CN Rail says it will purchase 350 riserless centrebeam lumber cars to meet growing demand for forest products despite lower segment revenues in the first quarter, according to Canadian Press late Wednesday. The new…
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US New Home Sales, Apartment Inventory: March and 1Q 2018
According to the US Census Bureau and the US Department of Housing and Urban Development last week, sales of new homes in the US rose by +4% over the month of March to reach a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 694,000. Year-to-date, covering 1Q 2018, the total number of new homes sold is +10.3% ahead of…
