NEW YORK CITY-At a New York Building Congress breakfast Wednesday, the group indicated that construction spending and employment have seen slight improvement of late, though it likewise projected gloomy days ahead, as government spending on infrastructure rolls back.

The NYBC's “New York City Construction Outlook 2011-2013” predicts spending and employment to remain fairly steady until 2013, when problems could arise, though Seth Pinsky, president of the New York City Economic Development Corp., said that the city’s capital commitments were actually up.

“The overall health of the city’s industry is pretty good,” NYBC president Richard Anderson said. “But it's very dependent on government work while the private market strengthens.” Anderson said that non-residential construction in the city was “overall pretty strong,” but that infrastructure spending—so crucial to keeping a bad situation from becoming worse during the economic downturn—is starting to slip.