Dive summary:

• Associated Builders and Contractors reports that its national index of commercial construction work that is contracted but not under way stood at eight months in the last quarter of 2012 – right where it had been in the third quarter – and the organization's chief economist reads that as a signal for the index to remain flat for a while this year.
• A flat eight-month figure for the fourth quarter was still good news, however, because it was 2.4% above the same period in 2011.
• The backlog was not uniform, with the Northeast and South building the number of jobs in the bag there while the index did, in fact, slip in the West and the Middle States, ABC reported.

From the article:

“As the president and Congress struggle to agree on ways to reduce the federal government’s large deficits, this debt presents major issues for contractors in the form of higher future interest rates and slower long-term expansion.”  ...