Dive summary:

• As the sequester of federal spending was coming into effect, including about $4 billion in construction cuts, government figures showed that nonresidential construction already had fallen 3.3% from December to January.
• The private-portion of the total sank 5.1% from where it was in December, but some of the pain was relieved by the fact that spending still stood 4.4% above where it had been a year earlier.
• As for the public sector, which has had no good news of late, nonresidential contracted 1% in January to leave spending down 2.7% from the year-before mark.

From the article:

"January’s construction spending decline was particularly alarming because the loss in momentum spread deep into privately financed categories," said Associated Builders and Contractors Chief Economist Anirban Basu. ...