Construction spending dropped -0.2% in December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,327.7 billion. December’s construction spending was up +5.0% compared to December 2018, but overall spending for 2019 was -0.3% below 2018 spending. Private residential construction spending was up +1.4% for the month to a $540.7 billion rate, but was down ‑4.7% for the year. Private nonresidential construction was down -1.8% for the month to a $460.4 billion rate, but flat for the year. Public construction spending over the course of the full year rose +7.1% to a $328.8 billion rate, with increases noted for educational construction (+3.4% to $79.0 billion) and highway construction (+8.8% to $98.8 billion).

Imports grew by $6.4 billion (+2.7%) in December, with exports only growing by $1.3 billion (+0.8%), causing the trade deficit to widen by $5.2 billion (+11.9%) to $48.9 billion. Service exports and imports both remained relatively unchanged for the month, while import growth for crude oil ($1.7 billion) and “other goods” ($1.2 billion) narrowly exceeded crude oil exports ($1.5 billion) and “other goods” exports ($1.0 billion). Exports were dragged down by a $1.0 billion decrease in automotive exports, while imports grew for nonmonetary gold ($0.9 billion) and other petroleum products ($0.6 billion). For the year, exports were down $1.5 billion, and imports were down $12.5 billion, narrowing the yearly deficit to $616.8 billion.

There were 225,000 jobs created in January, but the the workforce participation rate grew +0.2% to 63.4% increasing the size of the labor force and pushing the unemployment rate up to +3.6%. The participation rate increase also pushed up the U-6 unemployment rate, which includes underemployed and discouraged workers, from a record low 6.7% in December to 6.9%. An annual adjustment to population estimates revised the size of the civilian labor force (-524,000), and revised the number of jobs created in 2019 downward by -507,000. Jobs were added in January for construction (+44,000), health care (+36,000), and leisure and hospitality (+36,000), while jobs were lost in manufacturing (-12,000), including a loss of 11,000 jobs in the automotive industry. Wages rose $0.07 for the month to $28.44/hour, and were up +3.1% over the last 12 months, but nonsupervisory employees wages were only up $0.03 in January to $23.87/hour.