The latest employment figures show a continued shocking rate of redundacies in construction with another 42,000 jobs shed from the industry in the second quarter of this year. That makes a total of 170,000 recorded job losses over the past 12 months.
Let’s start with an assertion: Suicidal bidding in construction is not consistent with fair trade and is not in the best interests of the consumer, the client, the industry or the long-term prosperity of the nation. It’s a view. It has merit, particularly in the eyes of those who witnessed the previous recession. And it is not unreasonable to draw parallels in the economics of dumping. Consumers appear to gain in the short term, but the broadly held view it…
The Council of Mortgage Lenders today adds yet more weight to the view that the housing market is in a period of stability if not growth. Its June figures show a 23% increase in the number of home loans over the past month taking the total to a level not seen for about a year. The bounce back in loans to first time buyers will come as a welcome relief to house builders in particular. While numbers are still low…
The latest RICS survey out today adds yet more evidence to suggest a widening north-south gap in the housing market. Prices are now rising robustly in the equity-rich, high housing-demand south, while for most of Britain house prices remain on a downward slope. The exception to the north-south split is Scotland, which holds onto its position as the most resilient of housing markets during the current recession.
The latest trade survey covering both the contracting and materials sectors underlines both the depth and the rate of decline in the construction sector with pessimism rampant across all sectors. As in all surveys there are glimmers of light and hope. The survey, compiled by the Construction Products Association, showed that there was an “on balance” improvement in inquiries for public sector work and for repair and maintenance work across the board. And costs have fallen sharply for most contractors.
The increasing stretch of stable house prices is leading forecasters to call the bottom of the slump. The Nationwide late last month tentatively said it may be time to think the unthinkable that house prices may exit 2009 higher than they entered it. Last week much was made of the RICS saying it expected house prices to be higher at the end of 2009 than at the beginning. Wisely, there were heavy caveats and warnings over the fragility of the…
I feel sure there will be someone penning near euphoric words about the 18% rise in orders in the second quarter, which is the opening line of the statistical bulletin released today. Ignore it. The new orders figures bounce about like a drugged kangaroo at a rave party, only it’s tougher to make sense of the orders figures. Here though are a couple of figures worth taking note of, in my view that is.
The message from the latest update on the housing market from the surveyors’ body RICS is that while the market may have found a clearing it is not out of the woods yet. There has been a torrent of better news on the housing market with both the Nationwide and the Halifax price indexes both showing rises in recent months. The RICS, in common with most observers, puts the improvement in the market down to an increase in buyer interest…
The CIPS appeared to be putting a rather positive spin on its July figures for construction activity on the back of a slowdown in the pace of decline and swelling optimism among its respondents. The press release reads: “Optimism about future activity levels in twelve months’ time continued to increase in July, reaching its highest level since April 2007. Many construction companies in the UK believe that economic conditions will improve and lead to higher sales.” And the CIPS spokesman…
The most concerning issue now facing construction as it dives deeper into recession is that of firms taking on work at less than cost. This is not sustainable business behaviour. More than falling workloads, falling prices defined the chaos that ravaged the industry during the recession of the 1990s. Worryingly, there are the first signs that sub-economic bidding may define the shape of the recession ahead and in the previous blog I looked at some numbers that show the impact…