Before March's uptick, construction spending had fallen for five straight months.
In an encouraging note, private builders increased spending on housing projects by 0.7 percent, contributing to the overall improvement in April. It marked the first time since August that private home builders boosted such spending. At that time, they increased it 5.5 percent.
Private spending on all other construction projects other than residential ones went up a strong 1.8 percent in April, following a 2.6 percent gain in March. Builders increased spending in April on projects including hotels and motels, factories, power plants and health care facilities. That more than offset reductions in spending on office buildings, amusement and recreation projects and on other projects.
Spending by the government, however, dipped 0.6 percent in April. That refected spending cuts on schools, hospitals and other health-care buildings, and sewer and water-supply projects.
A collapse in the housing market, a credit crunch and a financial crisis helped push the U.S. into a recession.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said he hopes the recession, which started in December 2007 and is now the longest since World War II, will end later this year.
Builders have been hard hit. They slashed spending on residential projects in the first quarter at an annualized rate of 38.7 percent, the most since the spring of 1980. Spending on commercial projects was slashed, too.
Economists are hopeful that cutbacks by business in the current April-to-June quarter won't be as deep as they have been. If they are right, the economy shouldn't shrink nearly as much during this quarter as it had in the last six months, analysts say.
SEARCH FOR NEW YORK AREA JOBS
USEFUL LINKS:
FINANCIAL RESOURCES || LOCAL STOCKS || GET WIDGET
EYEWITNESS TWITTER || FIND US ON FACEBOOK
