U.S. nonresidential construction enters the third quarter of 2026 in a deceptively calm position: total spending has roughly plateaued, headline cost and labor indicators are cooling, and the loudest trade-press narratives about jobsite robots, reshoring, and data-center “pauses” are running well ahead of what the underlying data shows. Underneath that calm, three more durable forces are doing the real work of shaping cost, schedule, and labor availability this quarter: power-grid interconnection constraints on data-center and industrial buildouts, tariff-driven materials inflation working its way through bid prices, and immigration enforcement’s effect on an already-tight craft-labor pool. None of the three is new, but each has moved from background risk to active, forward-facing constraint over the past quarter.
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Meet the Author
Brandon Michalski
Principal, Chief Construction Economist
Brandon Michalski is the lead economist for MOCA Systems, Inc., a leading owner’s representative firm providing program and project management services. Brandon’s decade in the mining and heavy construction industries provides a foundation for subject matter expertise. He holds a Master of Science in Applied Economics from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD as well as a Bachelor’s Degrees in both Mining Engineering and Biology from West Virginia University in Morgantown, WV. Brandon currently lives in Chicago, Illinois with his family and enjoys hiking and camping.
