Browsed by
Tag: Labour Force Survey

Bleak outlook for construction jobs as the downward trend continues

Bleak outlook for construction jobs as the downward trend continues

Construction job losses are starting once again to mount with a further 9,000 knocked of the number of workforce jobs in the final quarter of last year, as measured by the national statisticians. This means that at the end of 2010 there were about 2,128,000 construction jobs measured compared with 2,180,000 at the end of 2009 – a drop of just over 50,000. That takes the number of jobs lost from peak in September 2008 to 246,000, when numbers peaked…

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

Good news in the employment figures, but the future for construction jobs remains uncertain

Good news in the employment figures, but the future for construction jobs remains uncertain

The latest employment data will provide economists, politicians and strategists with plenty to chew on. The headline figure for unemployment jumped by 43,000 to top 2.5 million for the first time since 1996, the number of people in employment fell by 89,000 and the number wanting a job rose again. But there are certainly positive signs. The claimant count is down by 32,900 and the actual number of hours worked is on the rise. And one figure that probably won’t…

Read More Read More

Explanations on why the jobs figures and output figures don’t seem to match

Explanations on why the jobs figures and output figures don’t seem to match

The Office of National Statistics has released an article that throws some light on the figures for construction jobs. I for one have been rather confounded by the construction jobs figures which seem to have understated the devastation on the ground, particularly in the wake of the collapse in house building. Indeed I have also been a bit bamboozled by the construction output figures for a similar set of reasons. While this article doesn’t put to rest all my concerns,…

Read More Read More

Half a million construction jobs to go – it looks like a dead cert

Half a million construction jobs to go – it looks like a dead cert

Construction has now lost 213,000 jobs since the recession started to kick in the autumn of 2008, according to the latest figures. That is about 10% of the workforce. That sounds like a lot and it is. But given the severity of the fall in construction workload to date it is less than you might have imagined. So far we have seen construction output fall by more than 13.4% since the peak at the second quarter of 2008. Meanwhile the…

Read More Read More

Is an inaccurate measure of foreign workers messing up the construction data?

Is an inaccurate measure of foreign workers messing up the construction data?

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…

Read More Read More

We’ll be getting off relatively lightly if the construction workforce drops by 400,000

We’ll be getting off relatively lightly if the construction workforce drops by 400,000

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.

Grim outlook for jobs in UK construction

Grim outlook for jobs in UK construction

The official figures show construction lost 67,000 jobs in the third quarter of this year. This is more than 1,000 jobs each working day and half the jobs lost to the UK economy over that period. So while there may be suggestions of more stability in the wider economy, construction is clearly still mired in a growing recession.

Figures show more Eastern Europeans are giving up on the UK

Figures show more Eastern Europeans are giving up on the UK

The post credit crunch squeeze on the UK economy does appear to be encouraging more Eastern Europeans to call it a day and return home according to the latest information produced by the official statisticians at ONS. This does fit with the anecdotal evidence which suggests that the weak pound and better opportunities at home have made many foreign workers reconsider their stay in the UK. That said, the flow of Eastern Europeans into the UK still outweighs the numbers…

Read More Read More