AEM Webinar to Present Construction Equipment Market Outlook

The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) reports that the equipment manufacturing industry is still recovering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly three years after its onset.

That’s one takeaway from a recent survey that AEM conducted to find out its members’ thoughts about  how economic trends are affecting their efforts to do business, both in the United States and abroad.

Most respondents told AEM that they are still experiencing supply chain issues, and many said conditions continue to worsen.

“Nearly all respondents still face supply chain issues, and more than half are experiencing continuously worsening supply chain conditions,” said Kip Eideberg, AEM’s senior vice president of government and industry relations, during the association’s recent quarterly Equipment Market Outlook Webinar. “The two driving factors that we hear are the current supply chain disruptions and the workforce shortages.”

Information from the surveys is just some of what is detailed in AEM's Business Intelligence Dashboard and then later summarized in AEM’s quarterly Equipment Market Outlook Webinars.

The ongoing challenges of high interest rates, as well as energy and material prices, have plagued the construction industry. However, hope that those issues, and others, will eventually be resolved is on the horizon, according to AEM.

Here are some of the driving forces and key points from AEM’s Q1 webinar about the challenges that manufacturers of construction equipment will face for the remainder of 2023, according to presenter Danny Richards, lead economist, construction, at Global Data. 

• Global construction output growth slowed in 2022 and is to remain sluggish in 2023. Interest rates remain high and could rise further in the first half of this year before central banks bring to an end this tightening cycle, assuming of course that inflation starts to fall. Energy and construction material prices also remain high, although some have fallen from the peaks of the second quarter of last year.
• Investment in infrastructure, as well as in energy and utilities, will be driving forces for growth. Investment in infrastructure will continue to be a driving force for growth, especially as the Investment Infrastructure and Jobs Act in the U.S. gathers momentum. Energy and utilities will also provide a boost to overall construction activity, with renewable energy projects remaining a key investment focus.
• The industry is optimistic as it tracks $3.6 billion in projects across multiple sectors. Despite a relatively weak short-term outlook for construction output, there is still a sizeable pipeline of opportunities on the horizon over the next several years.
• The decline in construction output is expected to slow in 2023. The U.S. was one of the few markets to register positive growth in 2020 and 2021. However, driven largely by intense inflationary pressure and a slowing residential sector, output dropped sharply in 2022. Despite the deeper-than-expected decline in the residential market remaining a risk to overall growth, there has been an improvement in non-residential sectors. 

The data shows AEM CE indexes are in line with the average indexes. And, despite supply chain and workforce retention issues, many equipment manufacturers are hopeful for eventual resolutions to these ongoing issues.

AEM members can find out more during the Q2 Equipment Market Outlook Webinar on May 4. 

Here’s where to register.