Dive Brief:

• When the Census Bureau finally issued September and October construction figures this week, nonresidential had sunk 1.3% from its August pace, but climbed back 1.6% from September to October.
• The October annualized rate was $575.6 billion, but that left the first 10 months of this year 0.7% behind the same period of 2012.
• Thirteen of 16 parts of the nonresidential sector were up in October, and Associated Builders and Contractors Chief Economist Anirdan Basu said that gave some hope that work would begin increasing again in 2014 — though not likely before the second quarter.

Dive Insight:

ABC gets credit for looking for a silver lining in a double-barreled report that did not do much to cheer anyone — though it did show that public-sector spending was up. The Census Bureau, which had a number of data-collection and data-analysis problems because of the federal shutdown in October, handed out both September and October figures this week. It also revised downward its earlier numbers for July and August.