According to data released last week by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national construction industry added 33,000 net new jobs in April.

Nonresidential construction spending, which totaled $775.2 billion on a seasonally adjusted annual basis for March, was a 4.8% increase over the same time last year.

The one constant on any construction project is change. The end result of a completed building, roadway or other structure is almost never exactly how it was drawn up in the beginning. Once building begins, plans, specs and drawings are tweaked as efficiencies are noted, errors are corrected or work gets completed throughout the process.

The construction industry is ripe for improvement and brimming with potential. It’s also expected to be a 10 trillion-dollar industry by 2020. Today, construction constitutes 13% of the global gross domestic product, yet it’s well documented that productivity growth remains dramatically low. In reality, construction is emerging from old ways of thinking and challenges that span people, processes and technology.

Now that businesses are settled into the new year, it’s a good time to consider some of the top insurance and risk management challenges that contractors and other construction organizations should expect in 2019.

Nonresidential construction spending, which totaled $773.8 billion on a seasonally adjusted annual basis for February, was a 4.8% increase over the same time last year.

According to data released today by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national construction industry added 16,000 net new jobs in March.

According to data released today by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national construction industry lost 31,000 jobs in February, the biggest drop since December 2013. This follows adding 53,000 jobs in January.

Managing cash flow for a large construction project is tricky — not just because you don’t get paid immediately, but also because you’re dealing with progress claim preparation, submission deadlines, varying substantiation requirements and variation and claim negotiations — all of which distract you from actually doing the work and finally getting payment.

Anirban Basu, chairman and CEO at the Sage Policy Group, Inc., joins the podcast and discusses the economic trends and leading indicators that contractors need to watch in order to be successful.