The factory boom is almost out of first place. The Census Bureau’s construction spending report for August, released Oct. 1, puts private manufacturing construction at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $168.2 billion and private power at $165.9 billion. A year ago the gap was $58.5 billion. Now it’s $2.3 billion.
The headline number moved too. Total construction spending ran at a $2.203 trillion annual rate in August, 0.9% above a revised July estimate of $2.185 trillion. That’s still 1.7% below August 2025, and through eight months the industry has put $1.450 trillion in place, 3.1% less than in the same stretch last year.
August construction spending, read carefully
Census’s own confidence interval on the monthly gain is plus or minus 1.0%, so the 0.9% increase isn’t statistically distinguishable from zero. The year-over-year decline is. July got revised up, too. Exchange reported the first July estimate at about $2.16 trillion; Census now has it at $2.185 trillion, which takes some of the sting out of that month’s drop.
Private spending, at $1.655 trillion, rose 1.1%, and that gain does clear the error band. Private nonresidential was up 1.0% to $773.0 billion. Residential rose 1.1% to $882.3 billion but sits 4.8% under a year ago, with new single-family down 3.5% and multifamily down 0.6%.
Office, power and the manufacturing slide
Private office spending, the category where Census books data centers, rose 4.6% in a single month to $134.1 billion. It’s up 29.8% from August 2025, when it ran at $103.3 billion. Power gained 0.9% on the month and 9.7% on the year.
Manufacturing went the other way. The private factory category was flat on the month and 19.8% below last year’s $209.8 billion rate, and the not-seasonally-adjusted year-to-date figure is down 22.2%. That’s consistent with what Dodge saw upstream, when manufacturing groundbreakings fell 80.8% in its August starts data. Lodging is off 10.1% from a year ago, and private commercial is down 5.4%.
Public work is the steady part. Public spending edged up 0.2% to $547.8 billion and is 2.5% above a year ago. Highway and street, at $150.6 billion, is up 4.4% year over year, though it barely moved in August. Public educational held at $113.1 billion.
What the August mix means for contractors
The market isn’t shrinking evenly. It’s rotating. Dollars are moving out of semiconductor and battery plants and into data halls, generation and grid work, and the firms best placed are the ones whose electrical and mechanical capacity can follow. A general contractor with a factory-heavy backlog from 2024 is looking at a pipeline that’s down by a fifth, while a power or data center specialist is looking at a category up by a quarter or more.
The usual caution applies. Census says the average revision to total spending from first to second estimate is 0.65%, and category trends can take eight months to show reliably. The full August release and historical tables are on the Census site.
September’s figures come out Nov. 2. If power keeps adding $1.5 billion a month while factories stand still, it’ll be the bigger category by then.