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ABC: Construction Adds 15K Jobs in June

The construction industry added 15,000 jobs on net in June, according to an Associated Builders and Contractors analysis of data released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. On a year-over-year basis, industry employment has increased by 121,000 jobs, or 1.5%. The construction unemployment rate fell to 3.4% last month. Unemployment across all industries declined from 4.2% in May to 4.1% in June.  June’s employment report, coupled with recent inflation data, indicate that the U.S. economy continues to demonstrate solid momentum, stable unemployment and declining inflation. Construction added jobs for a second consecutive month.  ABC: Construction Adds 15K Jobs in June – tEDmag

Industry Leaders Rave About the Tax Cuts in Trump’s Megabill

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed into law on July 4, preserves the 21% corporate tax rate and creates new expensing opportunities for manufacturers looking to expand. It provides a host of changes to the U.S. tax code, including extensions to parts of the 2017 Tax and Jobs Act and new provisions that allow for enhanced expensing for manufacturers looking to expand operations or invest in research and development. While most manufacturing groups expressed support for the bill in the days leading up to its passage, opponents have raised concerns over its cuts to non-military government programs such as SNAP and Medicaid, as well as its curtailing of certain clean-energy tax credits.Industry leaders rave about the tax cuts in Trump’s megabill | Manufacturing Dive

Electrical Wholesaling’s 2025 Market Planning Guide

 Forecasting can be a tricky business. Your winning bet to succeed boils down to a rather simple, three-step approach:

  1. Work with your management team to gather all the facts you can find about your market of interest
  2. Develop forecasts for which way you think the market is headed
  3. Figure how to maximize the revenue potential

That’s a pretty basic strategy that works most of the time – until the basic facts in your forecast change and need be updated. That’s where we are at right now with the electrical wholesaling industry. It looked like 2025 might be year of moderate growth a point or two better than inflation for the electrical market – until tariffs came on the scene and scrambled some basic assumptions about material costs.  We don’t know when or if tariffs will dramatically impact electrical product pricing, but we do expect the electrical industry to get hit by some degree of tariff-induced prices increases, along with the rest of the U.S. economy. To manage your way through this uncertainty, it helps to have a consistent, tried-and-true planning tool to develop a realistic growth. Electrical Wholesaling’s 2025 Market Planning Guide | Electrical Wholesaling

Lumileds LUXEON 7070 HE Delivers Extreme Performance for Outdoor Lighting Applications

 Lumileds’ newest LUXEON 7070 HE delivers more than 1500 lumens and over 190 lm/W, simplifying the development of outdoor lighting applications that require very high light output levels, such as high-mast, high-bay, and flood lights. LUXEON 7070 HE is tested and specified at 8W and delivers 2500 lumens at its rated power of 15W. LUXEON 7070 HE is available in both 12V and 36V packages and is hot color targeted for 85°C for color accuracy and consistency. At 700mA, 4000K LUXEON 7070 HE delivers typical 1565lm and 191 lm/W. https://lumileds.com/

A Fossil-Fuel Boom in the Americas by Walter Russell Mead

Of all the goals President Trump has set in his norm-shattering second term, the goal of restoring what he calls America’s “energy dominance” may be the closest to realization. More new oil and gas production is likely to come from Canada, Guyana, Argentina and Brazil than from the U.S. Energy abundance is headed our way. Mr. Trump wanted to derail the push against fossil fuels and enhance America’s influence in world energy markets. With unexpected support from Canada, Argentina, Guyana and Brazil, his chances of success look good. QwzGdRrdXTLzf9oJkIR2-WSJNewsPaper-7-8-2025.pdf

Global Semiconductor Sales Increase 19.8% Year-to-Year in May

The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA)today announced global semiconductor sales were $59.0 billion during the month of May 2025, an increase of 19.8% compared to the May 2024 total of $49.2 billion and 3.5% more than the April 2025 total of $57.0 billion.  The growth is driven by increased demand in various sectors, including AI, cloud infrastructure, and advanced consumer electronics. Global Semiconductor Sales Increase 19.8% Year-to-Year in May – electrifiED

Data Center Construction Continues to Grow by Tom Zind

How do you paint a rosy picture for a construction market sector that’s been in the dumps and shows scant signs of a quick change of fortune? There’s one way: Stretch the definition, and throw in a category that’s come so far so fast that standard market indices haven’t been able to catch up. That’s what FMI Corp., does in the second-quarter installment of its 2025 North American Engineering and Construction Industry Outlook Reasonably, it lumps data centers into the office component of its non-residential construction analysis, yielding a bullish four-year forecast for the sector that beats nine of 10 others. Citing forecasts of data center demand growing 34% in 2025 and 18% next year, FMI sees office construction growing every year between 2026 and 2029 at an average of about 7% annually. Data centers may be the office of the future, housing the infrastructure enabling higher productivity that could be a driving force for the economy for decades to come. Data Center Construction Continues to Grow | EC&M

New Trade Pacts Confirmed, Tariff Changes Delayed to Aug. 1

US negotiators have reached new trade agreements with several nations, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent each said Sunday, adding that President Donald Trump has moved the start date for all tariff changes from Wednesday to August 1 to provide additional negotiating time with more countries. Countries without a deal by then will see tariffs return to April 2 levels, Lutnick and Bessent said. Lutnick Says Trump’s Tariffs Will Take Effect on Aug. 1 – Bloomberg

Gaining an AI Edge in Electrical Design by Ellen Parson

No longer a theoretical concept, AI is a practical tool that’s increasingly becoming embedded in the workflows of top consulting specifying engineers. Despite this momentum, AI’s rise in the electrical design realm — and the greater construction industry as a whole — remains somewhat tempered. From the research I’ve seen so far, AI is not poised to replace engineering expertise but rather to enhance and augment it, streamlining repetitive tasks, supporting design decisions/options, and enabling a range of capabilities that have yet to be discovered. Although the future of AI is obviously yet to be fully realized, let alone fully imagined, as adoption grows — and trust in the tools improves — I think we can expect broader and deeper integration into the full life cycle of electrical system design and delivery. Gaining an AI Edge in Electrical Design | EC&M

WAC SMART LIGHTING SYSTEM

The WAC HOME smart lighting system allows users to control lighting with a tap or a voice command. They can adjust the color temperature or brightness of a single light, set up groups or manage an entire home’s lighting, inside and outdoors. The system is engineered with smart WAC- Mesh technology and the MyWAC app for enhanced control and connectivity to manage and monitor lighting from anywhere worldwide. Users can schedule luminaires according to dates/times, special events, and scenes within the comfort of their home. They can set custom CCT and intensity ranges or choose from a selection of presets for a personalized experience in every room. Wac Home | WAC Lighting

What Do the Colors on Bread Tags Mean? – These color-coded tags indicate the date the bread was baked and packaged.  Now that you know that the color-coded tags actually mean something, how can you remember which color means which day? Luckily there is an easy way to remember the schedule. The colors correspond to weekdays in alphabetical order: Blue (Monday), Green (Tuesday), Red (Thursday), White (Friday), then Yellow (Saturday). Maybe you just learned something you did not know…..