Finding, training, and retaining employees will continue to be a challenge moving into next year. With many homeowners still feeling the pinch of inflation, contractors will notice that more potential customers are price-shopping.

These results highlight survey responses from more than 1,000 residential service contractors around the U.S.

Dodge Data & Analytics released its 2020 Dodge Construction Outlook. The report predicts that total U.S. construction starts will slip to $776 billion in 2020, a decline of 4% from the 2019 estimated level of activity.

Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) released its monthly TRENDS report, showing the average sales performance by HARDI distributors was a decline of 2.8% during June 2019.