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Tag: recession

Falling family spending on home improvements and the construction recession of 2005 revisited

Falling family spending on home improvements and the construction recession of 2005 revisited

Britons appear to be spending ever less on contractors to do up their homes, despite the popular view that people are investing to stay in their homes rather than move. That’s certainly what the official construction output figures show and so do the family spending data released yesterday. And the decline didn’t start with the recession it is far more longstanding. According to the family spending survey, households spend less on contractors now in cash terms than they did a…

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Growth for construction in third quarter, but less than some surveys suggested

Growth for construction in third quarter, but less than some surveys suggested

The latest construction output data shows the industry is growing, but a little less quickly than the earlier official estimate and significantly less than some surveys suggested. According to the figures output in the third quarter rose 1.7%, compared with an earlier estimate of 2.5% provided with the GDP figures released late last month. Broadly speaking this is of no great consequence. The key point is that activity has now increased for two successive quarters and there’s growing confidence that recovery…

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Why brick data are still useful in tracking house building – if less so than in the past

Why brick data are still useful in tracking house building – if less so than in the past

The latest Building materials and components statistics were released by the business department BIS today. So I thought it worth having a wee peek at how facing brick deliveries have been going, given the general fuss about house building. I tweeted a few graphs earlier to show how brick deliveries had changed, which as I suggested provides a hint at changes in house-building activity. But it seems wise to add a few words of caution, since, as with all data,…

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Strengthening data push construction forecasters towards greater optimism

Strengthening data push construction forecasters towards greater optimism

Construction industry forecasters have been busily upgrading their forecasts in the light of a turnaround in industry fortunes since Spring. Despite all raising their expectations for the future path of construction, at first glance the forecasts from Construction Products Association, Experian and Hewes appear to be telling very different stories. That certainly seems to be the take-away message from the graph. In some ways they are telling different tales, but in reality there’s more similarity than meets the eye. One…

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Comparing the pattern of changes in construction jobs by region

Comparing the pattern of changes in construction jobs by region

The latest jobs figures provide yet more evidence that the collapse in construction may be slowing down. The number of construction workforce jobs on the ONS seasonally adjusted figures rose slightly and was roughly the same as in the same period a year ago. These workforce jobs figures broadly support the picture painted by the employment figures released a month ago. The workforce jobs data do however provide us with a view of what is happening at a regional level….

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Finding smiley faces in the wallpaper – a look at today’s house building data

Finding smiley faces in the wallpaper – a look at today’s house building data

What can be said of the latest (second quarter) house building statistics that we don’t already really know, or suspect we know? Probably not a lot. The chances are they tell us more about the things we are likely to forget or ignore. Let’s look at the statistics for house building in England. Starts were well up, a bumper 37% (not seasonally adjusted) comparing 2013Q2 with 2012Q2. But this is comparing a relatively event-free sun-baked quarter with a rain-sodden Jubilympics…

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Construction jobs figures provide reasons for hope and signals for action on training

Construction jobs figures provide reasons for hope and signals for action on training

It’s only one quarter’s figures and we should be cautious of statistical quirks, oddities such as last year’s Jubilympics and weather effects, but there is more promise in the latest construction jobs figures than might have been expected. Certainly the generally improved mood will mean that firms are more willing to hold onto quality people than they might have been. And there is a hint of this in the figures which show a small drop in the numbers, but an…

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A good quarter in a bad half for construction

A good quarter in a bad half for construction

Construction output rose 1.4% in the second quarter of this year compared with the first, according to the latest ONS data. You might think: “Whoopee here we go!” But we’d have hoped for, if not expected, some bounce back after the first quarter of the year came in at its lowest level for a single quarter for more than a decade. If we compare the first half of this year with the final half of last the numbers suggest the…

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Is the recent surge in brick deliveries a sign of rapid growth in house building?

Is the recent surge in brick deliveries a sign of rapid growth in house building?

Today’s release of what are fairly obscure figures to most people show brick stocks plunging to the lowest level since the 1980s and a surge in deliveries comparing the latest quarter with a year ago. A rise of 16% year to year should be something to write home about, shouldn’t it? This apparent boost to production must be of interest to the armies of economists and commentators keen to spot potential effects that can be tracked back to the Help…

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Not much more sun, but fewer black clouds in latest construction industry forecasts

Not much more sun, but fewer black clouds in latest construction industry forecasts

The recent welter of more upbeat economic data has left the numbers in the latest construction industry forecasts pretty much unmoved, with the exception of private housing. The broad view is still that this year will see output fall, between 1.5% and 3.8%, with recovery taking place sometime between the end of this year and sometime next year, depending on which forecast you look at. Excluding private housing, there have been tweaks here and there as the forecasters have adjusted…

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