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In March, the size of the U.S. labor force rose by nearly 400,000, as many working-age people who were previously on the sidelines jumped back into the job hunt.

VICTORIA—Potential delays by the federal government on deciding the fate of a liquefied natural gas project in British Columbia appeared to be causing a concern overseas even before the latest setback on March 21, with the Japanese ambassador warning that putting off a decision could mean Canada missing out on a rare opportunity.

TORONTO—The Ontario Electrical League will be holding its 2016 Electrical Industry Conference May 11-14.

TORONTO—Members of the Ontario construction industry are being encouraged to report irksome instances of red tape as part of the province’s newly announced Red Tape Challenge.

TORONTO—The C.D. Howe Institute has endorsed an innovative public-transit funding tool being considered by the City of Toronto to finance its share of Mayor John Tory’s proposed SmartTrack plan.

MOSCOW—A Moscow court has ordered that a deputy culture minister be held in jail for two months on suspicion of embezzling state funds allocated for restoring historic sites.

Like many other construction stakeholders parsing the federal budget after it was unveiled by Finance Minister Bill Morneau, the Progressive Contractors Association of Canada (PCA) loved the big round infrastructure spending numbers mentioned — 10 years, $120 billion to be spent on infrastructure.

Excavating is ongoing for the Monde Condominiums on Bonnycastle Street in Toronto.

The design and construction industry in Ontario is a major player in the health of the provincial economy, providing employment to more than half a million Ontarians and generating more than six per cent of the province’s GDP.

Structural steel work progresses on the King Blue condos and mixed-use project by developer Greenland Group in Toronto.

Scarcely a week passes without an announcement of a new project to take carbon out of the atmosphere and sequester it, somewhere.

Cellular Lightweight Concrete has been long used for slabs and road construction, but getting the industry to look at it as a building block for structural walls has been a challenge.

KOLKATA, INDIA—A long section of a road overpass under construction collapsed March 31 in a crowded Kolkata neighbourhood, with tons of concrete and steel slamming into midday traffic, leaving at least 21 people dead and scores of others injured in the Indian city, police said.

BROCKVILLE, ONT.—The Town of Prescott and the City of Brockville will be receiving a combined funding of up to $2.7 million under the Ontario Community Infrastructure Fund (OCIF) the provincial government announced March 18.

TORONTO—More three- and four-bedroom condominium apartments and townhomes are needed to meet the housing needs of millennials in the GTHA’s housing spectrum, says the Residential Construction Council of Ontario (RESCON).

OTTAWA—Funding to overhaul First Nations communities, updates to building codes and upgrading public transit regionally was praised by various stakeholder groups following the unveiling of the federal budget on March 22.

The design choice of a double steel box girder structure for the $13.8 million Sir Robert Bond Bridge over the Exploits River near Bishop's Falls, N.L. is "a bit unusual" by the province's Department of Transportation and Works standards.

Canada’s national engineering associations welcome the federal government’s two-phased commitment to infrastructure spending over the next decade but one of them, the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies-Canada (ACEC), has concerns over the back-loaded phasing of the spend.

Yes, I’m an economist first, but in my secondary role as ‘tech whiz’ – my wife and kids would guffaw at that assertion – I’ve come across an exciting feature of standard Excel spreadsheets that I feel must be shared with you.

Obtaining a proper read on retail sales in the U.S. and Canada these days has been made harder by the sharp drop in gasoline prices, -20.7% year over year south of the border and -13.1% on the north side.