Per an article on www.bizjournals.com “Employment in Central Florida’s construction industry has ballooned to a size that hasn’t been seen in a decade despite a slowdown in construction starts. The Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford area employed about 79,000 people in the construction industry in May — a benchmark that hasn’t been reached since December 2007, according to recent preliminary numbers released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The growth in construction jobs is occurring as year-to-date commercial construction starts fell more than $1 billion when compared to the year prior, a recent analysis by Dodge Data & Analytics showed.
But the sky isn’t falling for Orlando’s construction industry, as job growth means big projects continue throughout the area, said Mark Wylie, president and CEO of the Central Florida chapter of Associated Builders & Contractors Inc. In addition, construction starts are best compared at least over a full year, not just a few months, since large-scale project starts occur infrequently throughout the year and can throw off short-term comparisons, Wylie told Orlando Business Journal.
Permit values for commercial construction projects in Lake, Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties were down 52 percent between January and May, from about $2.2 billion in 2017 to around $1.1 billion in 2018, Dodge Data & Analytics reported. The report totaled the value of commercial construction starts in office, retail, hotels, warehouses, manufacturing plants, educational institutions, medical facilities, religious, government, recreational and other such buildings.”
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