Figures
released today show that the total level of output from the UK construction
industry is 7 per cent lower than this time last year.
There may be some light at the
end of the tunnel though. The reason? Official figures show that overall output
was 5.5% higher than when comparing January 2012 figures against January 2013
which suggests that there may be some scope for recovery.
The Office for National Statistics
(ONS) commented that all sectors within the construction industry showed significant
gains during January, (excluding 'private commercial other new work'), which
fell by 0.5%.
The construction industry as a
whole makes up around 7% of the UK economy and lower than expected output was
said to the be main reason holding back Britain’s economic recover.
According to the Markit/CIPS construction
index output from the construction industry contracted for three consecutive
months from January to March 2013.
The office for National
statistics explained;
“Construction output is highly responsive to the economic cycle
and has fallen by 16.5% when comparing the last quarter of 2012 with the first
quarter of 2008”
“Comparing
the three months from December 2012 to February 2013 with the same three months
one year earlier, the volume of construction output decreased by 8.9%.”
New construction projects were
down by 10.7% in the first quarter of 2013 which the public, private and
commercial industries all playing their role in the slowdown.
My opinion is that these results are really quite varied and can be interrupted in many different ways. Let's see what the next three months bring.
No comments:
Post a Comment