Published: 28 Jan 2011
According to the latest results from The Survey Association (TSA) quarterly poll of member firms, more than half continue to work below capacity due to a shortage of orders. With the government’s austerity programme coming into effect from April this year workloads are predicted to fall even further.
Graham Mills, TSA President said: “The construction sector has still not reached the bottom of the most savage recession for the industry in living memory and the cuts in government expenditure are likely to make matters worse.”
The contraction in the economy during the last quarter of 2010 that took economists by surprise was experienced first hand by our member firms who witnessed a 3.3% decline in the construction industry during the quarter. We knew that our members fee income was impacted and that services output would be weak, but the size of collapse in construction was significant.
“Our survey shows that the only 24% of our member firms are expecting any increase in workloads during the first quarter of 2011.”
He warned: “The Government is pinning its hopes of economic recovery on the creation of new jobs in the private sector but its policies are having exactly the opposite effect in the construction sector.”
“Cuts in public sector spending are having a particularly adverse impact on our members firms and their workforce” He added that the construction sector had the potential to help pull Britain out of recession.
Mills said if the Government invested in infrastructure to tackle the crisis it would build real foundations for a sustained economic recovery.
