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.
Practically all construction statistics are poor by comparison to the data in most other industries. It is not a fault of the statisticians or researchers. They have an unenviable job as the construction industry is, relatively speaking, very tricky to measure. So the best way to make sense of what is really going on it to look at a wide range of information and see what matches and what clashes and glean information wherever you can. Valuable insight into the…
For those with an optimistic nature there was some good news to be seen in the latest set of industry forecasts with both the Construction Products Association and Hewes trimming how much they feel output in the industry will fall. Indeed the three forecasts came closer together in this round of forecasting as Experian took a marginally dimmer view of 2009. This convergence hints at there being more certainty about the near term direction of construction than there was. That…
The futures market is now pricing in strong growth in the housing market, with the Halifax index priced to rise by 6% over the coming 12 months and by 12% over 5 years. This is a marked rise in the prices from just a month ago and reflects the uplift in the Halifax index against which the futures prices are measured and the overall rise in other house price measures. The Tradition Future HPI – a derivatives-based measure of future…
If you bought a house in 2003 or afterwards there is a fair change that by 2013 it will be worth just the same or less than as you paid for it. That is the grimmest view taken by the forecasters at the economic consultant CEBR. However, looking at the most optimistic economic scenario, the CEBR forecasters think that house prices might just claw their way back to 2007 levels by early in 2013.
The latest jobless figures showing a leap of 81,000 people unemployed over the past quarter will come as little surprise to most people in the construction industry. They are seeing life getting tougher by the day, especially those with any links to house building. The major house builders have axed about 40% of their direct workforce and for each of them roughly five others lose their work. Against this background it is no shock that the figure put on the…