https://www.xperience-group.com/news-item/construction-industry-news-what-happened-in-march/
March has seen a mixed bag of news within the construction industry. Amid a rocky start to the year, UK commercial construction activity has increased. UK SME’s call for migrant workers to stay, while half of the Carillon workforce have already secured new roles.
Recent research by the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) has shown that 76% of SMEs say losing EU workers will have a negative impact on their business. They praise the quality of their EU workers and encourage them to stay. In fact, the survey also highlighted that 94% of firms say the quality of work is good or very good. With Brexit just one year away, this poses a lot of food for thought for Construction SME’s across the UK.
With recent media events highlighting the downturn of construction giant Carillion, thoughts go out to those who lost jobs because of the crash. This month’s news however reported that around half of the 18,000-strong UK workforce have already secured jobs across construction and support services.
More here via Construction Enquirer.
UK unit sales of construction and earthmoving equipment grew by 7.6% in 2017. This is according to data released by the Construction Equipment Association, which also suggested that with the weak pound, exports grew even faster. The UK exports more construction machinery than it imports, creating a balance of trade surplus of £1.43bn in 2017.
Following the collapse of construction giant Carillion, and with many other firms suffering from late payments, Build UK say that there need to be “consequences” for bad payers. With this, construction software for effective management and control over contracts is becoming more important than ever and should be seriously considered by organisations to stay in business.
According to new research, commercial construction activity in the last 12 months to the end of Q4 2017 grew to £15.5bn, up 5.5% compared with the previous quarter. Scotland and the North West were the strongest-performing regions, both increasing activity by 18% during the quarter, while activity in London increased by 10.1% to £4.5bn.