Dive Brief:

• The Current Materials/Equipment Price Index compiled by business-consulting firm IHS, has been holding pretty much even for past seven months, and it is not what is driving up the wider Engineering and Construction Cost Index.
• Four of 12 items in the materials and equipment index are declining in price, and the other eight are increasing only a bit or not at all as China's steel-producing capacity continues rising, producing a glut in the market.
• The portion of the engineering and construction index that has been rising steadily is subcontractor labor, which stood at 56.8 this month, and was at 58.5 last month, in a system in which any number above 50 indicates rising costs.

Dive Insight:

IHS works with the Procurement Executives Group to gather data from the executives who are in charge of buying at engineering and construction firms. They supply information about whether they are paying more, less or the same for materials, equipment and labor and what they think will happen to those prices over the next six months.