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

  • Wide variations in Europe's road safety figures
    May 14, 2012
    Road safety in Romania continues to be a major issue, with the country seeing more deaths in 2009 than in 2001. A study by the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) shows that Romanian roads are eight times more dangerous than similar links in Sweden, which has Europe’s best record for road safety (see also Safety Report). Romania, along with Malta, has bucked a trend within Europe of reducing road accidents levels between 2001 and 2009 according to the report. However, while Malta’s road fatality rate
  • European outlook for construction machine sector
    February 9, 2017
    Industry confidence – at least for the near future - is supported by performance of the European market, according to the latest CECE Barometer. Stable development at high levels in northern and western Europe underpins a continuing yet slowing recovery in southern Europe and fairly weak growth in Central and Eastern Europe. There are around 350 global OEMs operating in Europe and more than 85% of their worldwide production is done in this region. Half of these 350 OEMs have all their production in Europe.
  • EU Commission adopts plan for €50 billion boost to European networks
    May 2, 2012
    The European Commission has tabled a plan which will fund €50 billion (US$68.7 billion) worth of investment to improve Europe's transport, energy and digital networks. It has also announced the Europe 2020 Project Bond Initiative which will be one of a number of risk-sharing instruments upon which the facility may draw in order to attract private finance in projects.
  • Volvo CE’s good results for Q2
    July 22, 2025
    Volvo CE is benefiting from strong results for Q2, 2025.