Browsed by
Tag: construction industry

What house price falls might mean for future housing construction

What house price falls might mean for future housing construction

The Halifax index out today will provide a nasty kick in the stomach for those businesses reliant on stable or rising house prices to prosper. The monthly fall of 3.6% was the biggest I could find on the historic data spreadsheet that Lloyds Banking Group provides that goes back to the start of 1983. The previous worst monthly fall was 3.0% in September 1992. And however much we are advised to look at the quarterly figure and how ever much…

Read More Read More

A 53,000 jump in construction workforce, but the jobs data make a mockery of output stats

A 53,000 jump in construction workforce, but the jobs data make a mockery of output stats

The good news is that construction found room for 53,000 more people among its workforce in the second quarter of this year as workload bounced back. The bad news is that if construction jumped in volume terms (not seasonally adjusted) by 13.3%, as the official data suggest, 53,000 is not a very impressive improvement in the employment figures at all – representing a rise of just 2.5%. So what does this all mean? Well this is yet further evidence that the…

Read More Read More

Latest stats pour cold water on construction growth prospects and house building

Latest stats pour cold water on construction growth prospects and house building

For those who read the latest output figures and cheerily saw an industry enjoying boom level growth in the second quarter, here is a bucket of cold water from the national statisticians at the ONS – the new orders figures. The fact that the orders figures are down is not totally unexpected. There was a clear and planned surge in public sector spending – some cynically suggesting that this was connected to the General Election in May. This surge was…

Read More Read More

A double-dip in house prices isn’t really the problem

A double-dip in house prices isn’t really the problem

The Nationwide house price survey showing a drop of 0.9% following a 0.5% drop in July adds yet more weight to the growing view that house prices are sagging and are set to sag further. The Halifax index peaked in March and fell monthly up to a minor rally in July. The Acadmetrics index has been heading south since March, although it similarly saw a gentle uplift of 0.1% in July. Hometrack went 0.1% negative in July and the drop…

Read More Read More

Newport: We have a problem…

Newport: We have a problem…

The construction output figures continue to provide more than a feast of food for thought, not least because they suggest a rise of 8.6% in output between the first and second quarter of this year. This is a quarterly rise on a scale not seen in construction since 1963, when the industry had to pull itself out of a standstill caused by the worst blizzards for more than 200 years. Frankly for many the figure of 8.6% is in the…

Read More Read More

No spring bounce in work say contractors… despite official figures showing a huge jump

No spring bounce in work say contractors… despite official figures showing a huge jump

The latest combined construction trade survey compiled by the Construction Products Association has thrown up an unexpected and confusing result showing contractors working less in the second quarter of the year. This is significantly at odds with the official data suggests. The result of the contractor survey shows 20% more firms did less work than did more in the second quarter. The ONS construction figures point to a rise of more than 6% in output in that period. This begs…

Read More Read More

A break in the clouds for construction’s smaller firms

A break in the clouds for construction’s smaller firms

For those looking for reasons to believe that the second quarter of this year provided some relative cheer, it may be worth taking in the surveys from the FMB, which represents local builders, and the NSCC, which represents specialists. We may not be talking about boom times, but both surveys reported a marked easing in the recessionary pressures that have dogged the smaller firms in construction for more than two years. You have to read through the data to get a…

Read More Read More

Did construction really propel the UK economy this spring?

Did construction really propel the UK economy this spring?

I have just spent a gruelling chunk of the morning trying to square the GDP figures with the construction output figures, dogged by a mild hangover and a glitch in the numbers. I hadn’t intended to dive into the figures until a bit later, but I took a “have you seen the figures?” call this morning and so was obliged to get the brain in gear a shade earlier than it felt necessary. The thing is that a huge slice…

Read More Read More

A last hurrah for construction before the axe falls

A last hurrah for construction before the axe falls

If you didn’t know what was coming, you could read the latest set of figures for construction orders and output as very promising indeed, with contractors both winning more work and doing more work in recent months. In constant prices, output in the three months to May was as strong as in any quarter since the third quarter of 2008 – you remember the quarter in which Lehman Brothers collapsed and the world’s financial markets went into convulsions. Certainly, after…

Read More Read More

More than 300,000 construction jobs axed so far in this recession

More than 300,000 construction jobs axed so far in this recession

Construction lost 63,000 jobs in the first quarter of this year and has shed more than 300,000 since the recession bit hard after Lehman Brothers collapsed in September 2008. The latest employment figures are based on a slightly different assessment of the industry (Standard Industrial Classification 2007 is used) and paint an even gloomy picture of the trajectory of construction jobs than did the previous series (see graph). At peak in September 2008 the statisticians now reckon there were 2,364,000…

Read More Read More