Coronavirus put 40,000 construction jobs at risk

If the government does not intervene, employment in the construction sector could fall by 40 thousand full-time jobs next year due to the coronavirus crisis, the economic institute for construction EIB said in a report on Friday. According to the EIB, construction has a "late-cyclical character", which means that the effects of the corona crisis will only be felt in this sector next year, NU.nl reports.

The coronavirus crisis will also impact the production volume. Without intervention, the outbreak will decrease volume by 16 percent to 62 billion euros, representing a loss of 12 billion euros. This will have consequences for housing construction, among other things, and thus the shortage on the housing market. Last year the construction output of new homes was worth 13.3 billion euros. For this year the EIB projects a decrease of 9 percent, and for next year a decrease of 13.5 percent.

According to the EIB, the work stock in the construction sector is slowly drying up. The number of quotation requests, which precede new orders, is also falling - by 25 percent on average for construction companies and by 30 percent on average for self-employed workers.