Brickonomics

111,000 jobs lost to construction... and that is just the start

The latest employment figures make grim reading for the construction industry with the number of workforce jobs plunging by 61,000 in the second quarter of this year. This means that 111,000 jobs have been lost to the industry since they...

Posted by Brian on September 16, 2009 10:07 AM

We're in the worst recession on record, says Construction Products Association

The spring round of forecasting has brought more gloom with the Construction Products Association taking an even dimmer view of industry prospects than in the winter. On the basis of the current data available the materials producers' body predicts a...

Posted by Brian on April 3, 2009 9:09 PM

Annual construction output forecast to fall £23.5 billion over next two years

The first of the spring forecasts for construction has winged its way into my inbox. It is the Hewes & Associates' forecast. Hewes expects on the basis of current data that levels of construction output will fall back to those...

Posted by Brian on April 3, 2009 5:16 PM

Bright spots in the gloom says Experian's latest construction forecast

I've just received an email from James Hastings, head of construction futures at Experian Business Strategies with the latest forecast update attached. And, not a surprise, it was gloomier than the summer forecast, which then saw the industry overall stumbling...

Posted by Brian on October 16, 2008 12:40 PM

Construction faces a worse recession than in the 1990s, says forecast

My good friend Martin Hewes passed me a copy of the latest forecast from Hewes & Associates. It's not good news, I'm afraid. His last forecast was pretty bleak, this is bleaker still. The headline figure of note is the...

Posted by Brian on October 9, 2008 3:11 PM

Forecasters see an £8 billion drop for construction work by 2010

So the latest stab by the Construction Products Association to make sense of the economic chaos suggests that construction output will fall 7% over the next three years. That is a loss in cash terms of about £8 billion in...

Posted by Brian on October 3, 2008 9:53 AM

Construction output falls 0.5% - but the drop is probably worse than it looks

So the construction output figures post a fall of 0.5% in the second quarter and recession in construction now looks more of a forgone conclusion than a fear The first point to note is that was not just the private...

Posted by Brian on September 5, 2008 11:43 AM

Three years of construction recession forecast - is that possible?

My good friend Martin Hewes provided me with a sneak preview of his latest three-year forecast for construction output. It's not a bedtime read for the faint hearted, that's for sure. The Hewes & Associates numbers show a recession in...

Posted by Brian on July 11, 2008 8:38 AM

First quarter national accounts figures provide cause for concern

The latest quarterly national accounts provide yet more worrying reading for the construction industry. Firstly, the revisions made by the statisticians have just made the pretty poor figures originally released look worse. GDP growth in the first quarter is now...

Posted by Brian on June 29, 2008 7:07 PM

Prepare for massive jobs cuts, recession is upon us

Construction is heading for two years of recession says the Construction Products Association in its latest forecast. It puts output down 1.3% this year and 1.6% next year, before a sluggish recovery starts in 2010. The net result is that...

Posted by Brian on June 17, 2008 9:30 AM

Construction recession looks likely this year

On the face of it things look fairly steady in construction land. Thanks to a strong showing from publicly-funded work and a timely rise in private non-housing repair and maintenance, construction output remained steady in the first quarter of 2008,...

Posted by Brian on June 6, 2008 10:49 AM

20% hike in two years in cost of home improvement work

Figures from the cost information service BCIS point to an inflation-led threat to the housing repair and maintenance market, as prices rise 20% over two years. Energy inflation, skills shortage and rocketing global materials prices are combining to pump up...

Posted by Brian on June 3, 2008 9:24 AM