All recession articles – Page 2
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Comment2010 saw fastest growth since the 1980s boom – but we are on the way down again
With public sector spending set to dive, there is little sign that the private sector is picking up
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CommentConstruction Growth Drives Economic Recovery? Really?
ONS said that GDP in 2010 Q2 grew at double the rate that macroeconomic forecasters were anticipating and that the main driver was construction... really?
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Comment
New KPIs show construction is getting more dangerous
Why do the latest construction safety Key Performance Indicators show construction has become more dangerous as the recession has bitten?
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Comment
Latest construction forecasts suggest there is more to fear than hope for
The latest round of forecasting by construction experts paints a picture little changed from three months ago with little hope of significant growth, much uncertainty and the risks to growth heavily weighted on the down side.The general pattern they expect can be seen from the graph (right).It shows that after ...
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Comment
It’s a double-dip recession for construction, if the statisticians’ first stab at growth is right
Construction has fallen into a double-dip recession – that is if the preliminary estimates by the statisticians putting together the first quarter 2010 gross domestic product figures are to be believed.The preliminary GDP figures put growth at a pallid 0.2% for the economy as a whole. This low level of ...
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Comment
High time: topping out of the Heron Tower
“This event is quite something,” said one guest at the topping out of the Heron Tower yesterday. “You don’t get many of these ceremonies done like this. Or with this many guests. But then look around. You would know that this was a [Gerald] Ronson event wouldn’t you?”I have to ...
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Comment
Local builders still deep in recession says latest FMB survey
Evidence that construction is still far from free from the grip of recession has come from the FMB, the trade body that represents many of Britain’s local builders.The survey results show a market that remained in rapid retreat during the first quarter of this year.There is some good news as ...
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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 ...
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Comment
Half a million construction jobs to go – it looks like a dead cert
Construction has now lost 213,000 jobs since the recession started to kick in the autumn of 2008, according to the latest figures. That is about 10% of the workforce.That sounds like a lot and it is. But given the severity of the fall in construction workload to date it is ...
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Official figures show construction output falling again, but devils lurk in the detail
Construction output slumped back into decline in the final quarter of 2009, after a supposed rise out of recession in summer.That is the headline story from today’s release of the construction output figures.But dig a bit deeper and we see some unsettling implications in the numbers.Firstly the statisticians now believe ...
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Comment
Prepare for a double dip in construction growth – the implication of today’s GDP figures
The UK is coming out faster from recession than we thought. But the hole was deeper.That seems to be the message from the statisticians’ latest stab at the nation’s output.The increase in fourth quarter GPD was revised upward from 0.1% to 0.3%, which will cheer many not least the Chancellor.But ...
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Comment
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 ...
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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 ...
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Comment
Was it just the cold or is it a relapse?
There are plenty of people, “experts” indeed, who fully expect a double-dip recession for both the economy and, for that matter, house prices.For them the data emerging for January’s performance appears to be, albeit gently, vindicating their position. They will no doubt seize with alacrity the retail figures from the ...
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Comment
Will we see the return of mobile classrooms, or can construction firms find a better solution?
In a chat yesterday it was suggested I should make a note of the rapid increase in the number of babies being born and the implications for construction, or not as the case may be.This chimed with me, as I had recently been told that they will need two more ...
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We’re still in recession says CIPS, despite official figures showing construction output growth
Here’s a question I ponder quite a bit. Why do the official figures show that construction grew in the second and third quarters of last year when to everyone else construction has remained mired in the slough of a nasty recession?Puzzling isn’t it. Even more puzzling that the estimates for ...
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Comment
Is an inaccurate measure of foreign workers messing up the construction data?
Here’s a couple of graphs for stat-spotters I thought worth placing together.For some while there has been unease about both the workforce jobs figures and the repair, maintenance and improvement (RMI) sector figures in the official construction output statistics.The two sets of data are linked and there's been some concern ...
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Comment
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 ...
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Comment
Mum: Are we out of recession yet?
You could feel the uneasiness among economists yesterday when the release of official statistics showed that the UK had just scraped enough oomph together in the final quarter of last year to stage a lacklustre return to growth.Most economists had expected the no-growth bar to be cleared by some margin. ...
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Comment
Why the forecast of a shallower recession is bad news for contractors
The latest forecast from the Construction Products Association suggests that the drop in future workload will not be as large as the forecasters had previously thought.The graph opposite compares the past three Construction Products Association forecasts.It clearly shows that with each progressive quarterly forecast the expected hole in construction workload ...
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