Skip to main content

Construction industry recovery continues

The latest report from Europe’s contractor association, the FIEC, shows that the recovery of the construction industry should continue, but at a slower pace. The FIEC reports a 2.4% recovery in activity in the overall EU construction industry in 2015 and forecasts an increase of 2.1% in 2016. “After reaching the bottom in 2013 activity is slowly recovering in the construction industry,” said FIEC Vice-President Jean-Louis Marchand, responsible for economic issues, as he presented FIEC’s annual statistics
June 15, 2016 Read time: 3 mins
The latest report from Europe’s contractor association, the FIEC, shows that the recovery of the construction industry should continue, but at a slower pace. The FIEC reports a 2.4% recovery in activity in the overall EU construction industry in 2015 and forecasts an increase of 2.1% in 2016.

“After reaching the bottom in 2013 activity is slowly recovering in the construction industry,” said FIEC Vice-President Jean-Louis Marchand, responsible for economic issues, as he presented FIEC’s annual statistics 2016. “In 2015 the increase in activity has finally been slightly higher than we had initially forecasted and the trend is expected to continue in 2016, but at a slower pace.” He added.

Marchand said, “Overall, EU total construction output amounted to €1,241 billion in 2015, which represents an increase of 2.4% compared to 2014”, reported Marchand. “This is positive, but we will still need time to catch up with the pre-crisis levels.”

According to FIEC’s statistics, developments in the EU show the following results overall

Behind the overall figure for the EU as a whole, disparities between Member States remain significant with Sweden seeing the strongest growth at 10% leading and Greece the weakest, at -15.1%.

The increase in activity in 2015 is mainly due to the 6.2% growth in civil engineering and 3.5% growth in housebuilding.

Rehabilitation and maintenance activity maintained relatively stable development before and throughout the crisis with a 2.6% growth in 2015. This has cushioned the construction sector. This trend is expected to continue in the near future.

Overall civil engineering activity in 2015 increased with a high growth rate of 6.2%, mainly boosted by significant infrastructure investments in the UK. The stronger the construction sector, the greater the demand for construction machines as well as materials. Clearly, a healthy civil engineering sector can help fuel jobs in manufacturing and supplying construction machines as well as sourcing materials such as concrete and asphalt, and driving forward the quarrying sector.

The level of employment in the construction industry increased slightly by 0.9% in 2015. But it should not be forgotten that over the period 2008-2014, the sector lost more than 2 million jobs. Altogether, construction provides jobs for 14.1 million people, which represents 6.4% of Europe’s total employment. This rises to 42.3 million jobs when including the indirect employment generated in related sectors.

In spite of the troubled period, the construction industry remains one of the major engines of Europe’s growth. It represents 8.5% of EU GDP and 3.2 million enterprises – the vast majority of which are SMEs.

Related Content

  • US road crashes increasing for 2015?
    August 19, 2015
    There is mounting concern in the US at the high number of crashes during 2015. For the first seven months of 2015, there has been a 14% increase in the number of traffic fatalities compared with the same period in 2014. The data shows that there were 18,630 road deaths in this period, with over 2.2 million serious injuries. This is a notable increase and should the trend continue it will mean that 2015 will have had the highest rate of road deaths since 2007. The cause (or causes) of the increase in road de
  • International INTERMAT
    June 11, 2012
    With the dust now settled after the INTERMAT 2012 exhibition, it is clear that this event proved a success. For INTERMAT 2012, attendance figures grew throughout the week, with many firms reporting very busy booths. Of note is the fact that INTERMAT received a high percentage of international visitors, with over 34% of attendees coming from countries other than France. Attracting some 200,000 visitors in all, 145,082 were identified as proper trade visitors and this represented an increase of 15.8% over the
  • EU noise levels rising
    July 31, 2012
    The EU funded SILENCE project maps the transport causes and possible solutions for reducing noise, reports Alan Peterson With Europe's ever-increasing population growth, the issue of noise for its 100 million citizens is becoming a pressing problem. Over 25% are exposed to critical transport-related noise, according to research by the EU funded SILENCE project, which reported its findings in Germany in May. The purpose of SILENCE is to develop an integrated methodology and technology for the improved contro
  • Italian equipment sales rise despite economic concerns, says Unacea
    November 2, 2018
    Construction equipment sales in Italy jumped 22% year on year to reach 9,615 units over the first nine months of 2018. Sales of earthmoving machines were up 23% to 9,281 units. Around 5% of sales – 334 machines - was for road machines, according to Unacea, Italy’. "The positive trend of sales on the Italian market continues also in the third quarter,” said Antonio Strati, Unacea councillor in charge of the statistics activities. “However, it should be remembered that in term of units, 2018 sales st