When people ask how I’m doing, I tell them I’m swamped with work, busier than I’d like to be. I’m hearing that’s not too normal these days (not that I’ve ever shot for normal). I read an article in ENR this morning that was sobering.

Last year in late Spring, the commercial construction sector was in decent shape, this year we are in a deep recession. Unemployment, led by the many laid off construction workers, tops 10% throughout much of America. The public bid jobs that are coming out via the stimulus money show a crazy level of competitiveness.

For example, an airport terminal replacement in Utah drew 50 GCs. 20 to 30 bidders are common on projects. ENR reports that a fire station in Arizona recently bid for $2.2M while a similar project two years ago went for $3.8M.

That sounds like great news for owners, and it is with an important caveat. Owners need to be extremely careful about who they select to do their work. I experienced a fairly major construction recession in the early 1980s and many contractors went bankrupt.

When a firm struggles for their life, they will do almost anything. Lying, cheating and stealing all far into the range of behavior to expect. When the sub or the GC goes under, the owner will certainly get caught in the current. After a number of subs going bankrupt, we found that a 25% hit on the contract amount was typical to get it worked out and completed. We learned some brutal lessons in those days and lots of folks are going to be learning those lessons again these days.

Good luck. Be careful.

So how will the US economy reward or punish Construction Supervisors? As usual, the answer is “It depends.” Regional trends may greatly overwhelm the national trend. Places like Florida that are so overbuilt may experience some depression like consequences. For example, I recently read about a Florida Contractor having his bank line of credit pulled (about $2,000,000) even though he was never late on a payment and was operating in the black.

For the national economy, though, I think the construction industry may not get whacked too badly. The hundreds of billions of dollars being offered from the Federal Government to banks will likely jump start many construction projects. When the banks have extra money to lend and the interest rates are low, developers tend to pull the trigger on projects. That gives those of us in the Building Construction Industry something to build. So what has been called the “Bank Bailout” will likely loosen the lending market and get more projects started.

President Obama will be pushing a huge Federal spending increase and construction infastructure projects will get more than their share of added funding. In these potentially terrible economic times, many economists seem to be agreeing that governments need to overspend and ready-to-build construction projects seem to be getting lots of attention.

Finally, as construction material prices drop and firms tighten their margins, it’s a great time for smart Owners to get their projects built. These Owners (that have the flexibility to time their start dates) probably won’t find a better time to get great pricing on a project than Spring of 2009. That phenomena will also help the overall construction climate.

I’ll end these musing by confirming that I’m no expert predicting the future of the construction market, but I do see a few promising trends that don’t get noted in the newspapers. Next year at this time you can tell me I was on the mark or a pie-in-the-sky bonehead. I’m hoping for the former.