Key Takeaways:

• In 2024, the manufacturing sector dominated construction starts in three of the four major South Carolina markets and is anticipated to see continued growth in 2025.
• The state’s construction workforce is not keeping up with demand generated by rapid statewide growth, creating challenges in manpower availability, which impacts project scheduling.
• Tip: Monitoring changes in global political climates and understanding impacts from market dependences may prove valuable in project planning throughout 2025.

Overview

Construction Starts: Total construction starts across South Carolina rebounded from a 2023 slowdown, growing 28% in 2024 behind a booming manufacturing sector. Manufacturing starts rose across the state, nearly tripling in total value to $3.8B in 2024 from $1.3B in 2023 and just $249M in 2022. The education sector also saw substantial growth of 88% over relatively consistent low levels the prior three years. Healthcare and multi-family starts decreased slightly compared to previous years’ growth as the state’s COVID-era migration boom began to moderate.

Construction Workforce: South Carolina’s construction workforce mirrored the spike in construction starts, experiencing its largest annualized growth rate since 2019 at 6%. The state’s unemployment rate rose to 3.85% from 3% in 2023, although it remains lower than the national average of 4.125%. Nationally, the Employment Cost Index for wages and salaries remained relatively flat as wages stabilized on higher unemployment, varying less than one index point as opposed to 2023’s four point increase. ​ ​

U.S. Material Pricing: Material pricing remained stable throughout 2024, changing 0.29% on average across the top 15 materials, further slowing to under 0.17% in the second half of 2024. Diesel fuel cost fluctuations flattened to an average of 3.8% throughout 2024 relative to the extreme month-to-month volatility of the last five years, resulting in stability in freight and trucking costs. Greater overall cost volatility is anticipated throughout 2025 due to global material dependency and rapidly changing political climates.