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Joy deferred as CIPS shows construction activity grows for first time in two years

Joy deferred as CIPS shows construction activity grows for first time in two years

So the construction activity indicator produced by the buyers’ body CIPS finally points to growth after two years of measuring falling workloads. But this seemingly uplifting moment appears to have brought little joy. The March figure popped its head above the 50 no-change mark on the back of rising activity in the housing and commercial sectors. But the survey also found more and deeper job cuts within the industry and there was a drop in the confidence within firms over…

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Why construction firms must recruit financial engineers

Why construction firms must recruit financial engineers

Financial engineers – you can be forgiven for holding them in total contempt. The finger of guilt for the recession ravaging construction firms points witheringly in their direction. But, galling as it might seem, construction now needs financial engineers more than it needs civil, structural, mechanical or electrical engineers. The tools and tool-making talents of financial engineers could prove vital in thawing billions of pounds worth of frozen projects. It offers the potential to generate a vaste source of new…

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Budget figures confirm the urgent need for new sources of investment in construction

Budget figures confirm the urgent need for new sources of investment in construction

As if in compensation for all the anticipation before and excitement during the Budget announcement, we are left with the dull thud back to reality afterwards. Certainly, for construction the Budget itself changed little of substance. Alright the first-time buyer stamp duty holiday was an eye-catching cheeky move. But we all know its greatest impact will be in 20 months time when we will see a flurry of activity by those who don’t want to miss out on potentially saving…

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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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Growth eludes construction as economy grows –that’s how CIPS sees it

Growth eludes construction as economy grows –that’s how CIPS sees it

The latest set of figures from the buyers’ body CIPS shows that construction remains mired in recession and the general pattern painted by the numbers provides little scope for optimism. The level of incoming orders fell for the third month in a row, says the report. And this will be from a low base. It all rather poses the question: where to from here? It is perhaps ironic, given the figures, that the survey shows expectations for activity over the next…

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Fewer redundancy in construction, but the future remains bleak on jobs

Fewer redundancy in construction, but the future remains bleak on jobs

For the optimists in the construction industry there is much hope to be gleaned from the latest employment figures. Equally for the pessimists there is plenty within the numbers to fret about. So what should we make of the latest batch of labour market numbers that, among other things, show that 163,000 redundacies were recorded in construction in 2009? 

Annual orders figures reveal extent of construction freefall – a £17 billion drop in two years

Annual orders figures reveal extent of construction freefall – a £17 billion drop in two years

The recession has ripped away from construction roughly £17 billion in annual new orders, despite £ billions more public sector sponsored work. That’s the clear message to me from the annual tot up of the new orders won by contractors released today. Forget the niceties of which sector is doing how well and you are faced with the grim picture of an industry in near freefall. In 2007 new orders in cash terms came to £50.6 billion. The figure for…

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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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Forecasts point to a tough and risky road ahead for construction

Forecasts point to a tough and risky road ahead for construction

The latest Experian forecast is out today and it paints a broadly similar, albeit slightly more optimistic, picture to that of the recently released forecast from the Construction Products Association. The main point of departure is on the views towards housing. Here the Experian forecasters are more bullish, if you can say that about a market that even by 2012 is expected to be almost 30% smaller than it was before the credit crunch. Experian’s expectation of a faster improvement…

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