In a chat yesterday it was suggested I should make a note of the rapid increase in the number of babies being born and the implications for construction, or not as the case may be. This chimed with me, as I had recently been told that they will need two more classrooms at the primary school my son is at by the time my daughter attends. I noted also that the Daily Mail had screamed about it a few days…
Here’s a question I ponder quite a bit. Why do the official figures show that construction grew in the second and third quarters of last year when to everyone else construction has remained mired in the slough of a nasty recession? Puzzling isn’t it. Even more puzzling that the estimates for construction’s contribution to the GDP data suggest the industry’s output was stable in the fourth quarter of 2009. What is even more puzzling for me is that the CIPS/Markit…
Here’s a couple of graphs for stat-spotters I thought worth placing together. For some while there has been unease about both the workforce jobs figures and the repair, maintenance and improvement (RMI) sector figures in the official construction output statistics. The two sets of data are linked and there’s been some concern that an under recording of foreign workers was impacting on the workforce jobs figures and in turn on the RMI data, as Labour Force Survey data is used in estimating…
The forecasts from Hewes & Associates and Leading Edge sit interestingly against the other winter forecasts for construction output released over the past couple of weeks. They seem to back up the mood among other forecasters that construction workload might not fall as much was feared in the middle of last year. But what is most notable about the various forecasts when we put them together (see graph) is the spread of central projections for the path of construction output….
The latest forecast from the Construction Skills Network (CSN) suggests that the current recession in construction will have led to a drop of about 400,000 in the number employed by the industry once job shedding ends in early 2011. This would mean a drop of about 15% in the workforce. That appears at first sight pretty savage. But set against the previous recession this would be getting off relatively lightly, with a shorter and less severe period of job cutting.
You could feel the uneasiness among economists yesterday when the release of official statistics showed that the UK had just scraped enough oomph together in the final quarter of last year to stage a lacklustre return to growth. Most economists had expected the no-growth bar to be cleared by some margin. Instead the preliminary estimate figure posted at 0.1% growth leaves open the possibility that further revisions could show the UK still in recession. Unlikely, but not an outlandish possibility. Even…
Each time a commercial property developer hints at making a move in the market I am confronted with the same question by those with an interest in construction work: Is this the start of the upswing? This question is usually followed by the suggestion that developers must be keen to build into the recession to place themselves ready for the recovery. Those desperate to see an upturn around the corner will be pointing excitedly to the Land Securities announcement this…
Consumer Price Inflation at 2.9% in December and up from 1.9% a month earlier… mmm… that’s not what the experts expected. Not by a long way. This morning’s story from Reuters published ahead of the inflation figures had its poll of experts plumping for inflation at 2.6%. No doubt there will be a lot of post-announcement rationalisation about the figures from economist, but in truth the City and economists at large have consistently underplayed the strength of inflation in their…
The latest Experian forecast is out today and it paints a broadly similar, albeit slightly more optimistic, picture to that of the recently released forecast from the Construction Products Association. The main point of departure is on the views towards housing. Here the Experian forecasters are more bullish, if you can say that about a market that even by 2012 is expected to be almost 30% smaller than it was before the credit crunch. Experian’s expectation of a faster improvement…
Contractors won 61% less in commercial sector construction orders in cash terms in the 12 months to November last year than they did in 12 months to the end of 2007. Here is a graph of orders won for all types of new work on a 12-month rolling basis. The graph shows the volume of work at 2005 constant prices and the value in cash terms. Roughly speaking, as the graph shows, construction firms are winning about a third less work now…