The good, the bad and the ugly to be found in the latest construction data
This month’s Office for National Statistics construction output figures have provided a conundrum for commentators. Are they good or are they bad?
Latest new orders figures cast a long dark shadow over construction
The construction new orders figures released by the Office for National Statistics on Friday suggest a truly scary year or more for the UK industry. We can find some solace in the general rule that it is unwise to take as your guide just one measure of activity in construction, given the trickiness of measuring the industry’s activity. There are much less worrisome measures of construction activity to be found. But let’s consider what conclusions we might draw if we…
Collapsing construction workloads push plant hire prices down to nine-year low
The worrying state of the construction industry is becoming increasingly evident outside those figures that show sharp falls in output, continuously weak orders and job losses. The latest Services Producer Price Indicies makes for very gloomy reading for the plant hire industry.
How UK construction consultants are selling themselves abroad
It has become noticeable of late that construction consultants seem significantly more optimistic than their fellows in UK contracting firms. Consultants may be a wee bit uneasy, but contractors it must be said seem to be wading in a slough of despond. The topic of restructuring (for which we read cutting jobs) is back on the agenda. I’ve suggested as one possible explanation for this disparity in happiness that consultants might be winning more work abroad and so partially relieving the pain of…
North East aches while London sees growth in construction jobs
Here is a chart that pretty much speaks for itself. It shows the regional change in the level of construction workforce jobs across the UK from before the recession to the summer of this year. Yesterday I looked at the trends in construction employment (a subtly different measure, but broadly similar) and the likely path of job creation/losses. I thought today I might dig into the ONS data and extract numbers for the regions. So I have taken an average of…
Why job shedding in the UK construction industry may be about to accelerate
UK construction industry employed about 57,000 fewer people in the third quarter of this year than a year earlier. That’s a drop of about 2.6%. The ONS data shows that since the peak in September 2007 the fall in the number employed is closer to 380,000. This represents broadly a 15% drop in the workforce. It’s worth noting that these figures are subject to a lot of statistical noise so a few thousand here or there is pretty meaningless. Furthermore…
UK construction bosses need to make Government face the facts: The industry is in freefall
Construction output fell 2.6% in the third quarter of this year. This fall was slightly more than had been expected when the nation’s first estimate of gross domestic product was released. For informed industry watchers this was no surprise. The fact that revisions by the Office for National Statistics to earlier data pushed the recorded level of output down still further was also not a surprise.
More families share homes as the squeeze on housing tightens
The number of homes being shared by two or more families has leapt almost 20% over the past two years, according to families and households data released last week. In 2010 the Office for National Statistics put the number of multi-family households at 237,000. In 2012 it stands at 281,000.
What is the optimism in the latest RICS construction survey telling us?
The latest survey of the construction market by the surveyors’ body RICS provides on first reading some confusion, showing optimism rising sharply while workloads fall. The survey has produced a mildly negative balance for surveyors’ workloads. Yet it also showed expectations of improvement in workload, employment and profit at levels not seen since the recession. Curious. What lies behind this surge in optimism among surveyors? Are we seeing green shoots?
The real home truth is that the Government can and should do more to boost house building
The National Housing Federation launched its 2012 Home Truths report today. It’s got lots of coverage, probably because it says again what many already know – there’s a housing crisis and it will put even more pressure on the already stressed and strained housing benefit system. We spend more than £20 billion a year on housing benefit in a bid to keep the poorest out of housing squalor. But thousands more working folk are turning to this benefit as rents…