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No sign in the data that construction employment is plunging again – not yet anyway

No sign in the data that construction employment is plunging again – not yet anyway

There is no getting away from the fact that the latest UK jobs figures are depressing. There’ll be plenty of discussion about that in the general news. And it bodes ill for the economy overall and in turn for construction. But for those looking for gloom in the construction jobs figures, the data does not seem to support the view that employment levels are once again plunging. The quarterly workforce jobs figures were not updated this month. But the alternative Labour…

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Forecasters see pain deferred as recessions takes longer to bite in construction

Forecasters see pain deferred as recessions takes longer to bite in construction

The latest construction output forecast from the materials producers body Construction Products Association suggests pain deferred for the industry. The revised view is that this year will be less bad than the forecasters first thought, but next year will be worse and the recovery expected in 2013 will be weaker. The main thinking behind this gentle revision is that the fall off in public spending on construction is happening slower than was previously expected, having interpreted the Government spending plans….

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Construction will not come out unscathed from Osborne’s Budget, but it could’ve been worse

Construction will not come out unscathed from Osborne’s Budget, but it could’ve been worse

Given the potential for increased pain in the gift of George Osborne there will be a feeling that construction hasn’t come out as badly as it might have from the emergency Budget. But “unavoidably”, as Chancellor Osborne might say, the construction industry will have to share some of the pain for the folly of the banks as the nation seeks to balance its budget. There will however have been a great deal of relief when the Chancellor said that capital spending…

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Stamp duty – a tax rise that looks set to win votes

Stamp duty – a tax rise that looks set to win votes

There is obvious glee within the housing market about the prospects of a two-year period free of stamp duty for those first-time buyers who purchase properties worth less than £250,000. The £250,000 threshold captures practically all of them, with significantly less than 10% of exceptions that will be mainly resident in London and the South East. And the cost of this “Budget giveaway” the Treasury puts at under £300 million annually at worst. This figure is of course a hypothetical resting on the…

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Comforting data ahead of the budget

Comforting data ahead of the budget

As the Chancellor Alistair Darling puts his final touches to the Budget he will be relieved by the recent spate of comforting data. Last Wednesday we had employment statistics showing that the unemployment was falling. On Thursday the figures on public finances were far healthier than expected, with the Institute for Fiscal Studies estimating that the level of borrowing for the financial year will come in £12 billion lower than forecast in the last Pre-Budget Report. Today we had the inflation…

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Brighter outlook from forecasters, but severe risks remain

Brighter outlook from forecasters, but severe risks remain

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….

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Are expectations of inflation too low?

Are expectations of inflation too low?

Inflation is now on the way up. That was to be expected. As Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England, keeps reminding us, we should expect inflation to be very volatile for some while. But, is it me or do the forecasts for inflation reaching a mini-peak at about 3% in the early part of next year seem to be a little timid? The reason I am a bit unsettled is that if expectations for inflation prove to be…

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Another one for the file marked “Gloom”: What do you mean you haven’t got one yet?

Another one for the file marked “Gloom”: What do you mean you haven’t got one yet?

Many thanks to Mel Budd of Leading Edge who sent me the consultancy’s latest forecast. For simplicity’s sake I have put the base figures for output in a graph with the other industry forecasts. What is striking is the growing consensus that things are looking horrid and there is a lot more worseness on the way.

Recession may cost 800,000 construction jobs – that’s one in three

Recession may cost 800,000 construction jobs – that’s one in three

The latest forecast from the Construction Products Association puts the annual peak to trough fall in construction at a shade above 20%. That probably translates to a 22% to 23% fall peak to trough on a quarterly basis, which compares with the 15% seen in the 1990s recession. This is a sharp downgrade from the forecast made just three months ago and is evidence of how the industry’s prospects have slipped deeper into the mire, despite the much talked of…

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If 2008 was bad for the housing market, 2009 looks much worse

If 2008 was bad for the housing market, 2009 looks much worse

There are plenty of scary figures in the latest forecast from the Council of Mortgage Lenders not least the expectation that half a million homeowners will fall into arrears. The expectation that 75,000 homes will be repossessed by mortgage lenders is pretty scary too, especially as this in practice would mean more repossessions than in previous peak of 1991 when all repossessions are totalled up. But for me the most disturbing prediction within the forecast is that residential property transaction…

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