You don’t need a map, satnav or signposts to drive a car from one place you know to another you don’t. But it helps. A guide is handy. It supports better choices. It saves time. So, too, can good industry statistics. You don’t need them. But a good set of numbers can help to scale your market and provide hints at where it’s heading. Even fairly ropey stats and indicators help. This brings me to the latest ONS release of…
The Office for National Statistics output figures released on Friday strongly suggest construction is heading for a technical recession. Put another way, recorded output will need major revisions or an exceptional boost in March if we are not to see two successive quarters of decline. The data suggest output in both January and February, when adjusted for inflation and seasonal factors, was lower than for any month since December 2013. On its current trajectory we are looking at a recorded…
The latest monthly construction output figures suggest that the surge in work seen in the mid part of 2010 is beginning to fade. A significant pulling forward of public spending helped to underpin housing construction, to propel publicly funded work and engender more confidence in private sector construction work. This created a swell in construction activity, which has caused some kerfuffle among economists as it has been the main driver of overall growth in the economy – although recent revisions…
Can we accept unquestioned the construction figures presented by the latest preliminary estimate of UK economic growth? To do so is to accept that construction is enjoying workloads at a level that just three years ago were close to pushing the industry’s capacity to its limits. What’s more the rate of growth being enjoyed by construction – 14% or so over six months – is seen by many who follow the numbers as astonishing and for some incredible. But before launching…
The latest forecast from the Construction Products Association suggests that the drop in future workload will not be as large as the forecasters had previously thought. The graph opposite compares the past three Construction Products Association forecasts. It clearly shows that with each progressive quarterly forecast the expected hole in construction workload has shrunk. Fantastic news you might think. Well think again. If you’re a contractor this is probably bad news not good news. And here’s why.
It has long been said that construction is an important bellwether in determining the shape of the nation’s economic progress. Today the performance of construction, or rather revisions to its measured performance, seemingly determined how close the UK is to recovery. The upwardly revised construction data put the nation yet closer to its official exit from recession. Whether we are in or out of recession has huge political significance. But for me it is interesting to note just how much store is…
For those poring over the latest new orders figures released today to find guidance on the future of construction activity I suspect there is something for the optimists, but rather more for the pessimists. It must be said that trying to discern sensible insight from examining the orders figures month by month is probably as fruitful as peering and prodding hourly at the scab on a grazed knee to see how it’s healing. You more or less know how long…