A survey conducted for the Construction Leadership Council says 20% of construction jobs could be lost eventually with a reduction of 10% by September.
The predictions come from the cross-industry ‘People Survey’ carried out by Build UK on behalf of the CLC at the start of June.
The survey provides a snapshot of how a reduced workload post Covid-19 could affect the construction workforce.
A report published by CLC summarises the key results that will be used to support the implementation of the industry’s Roadmap to Recovery, designed to ‘restart, reset and reinvent’ the sector over the next two years.
To understand the impact of coronavirus on jobs, the People Survey asked about employment levels three months ago (March) and anticipated employment levels in three months’ time (September).
Respondents currently directly employ 89% of their workers, with the remaining 11% being self-employed or agency workers.
On average, 32% of direct employees are currently furloughed, with all sectors of the industry having accessed the Government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme at some point.
There is anticipated to be a 7.7% reduction in the number of directly employed workers across the industry by September.
In the longer term, 43% of respondents anticipate making redundancies, with up to 20% of their workforce being affected.
There is expected to be a 26.7% reduction in the number of self-employed and agency workers across the industry by September.
Home Builders, Specialist Contractors and Contractors are the most significant users of self-employed and agency workers.
Home Builders and Specialist Contractors anticipate reducing their numbers by 4% and 11% respectively, Contractors are looking to reduce self-employed and agency workers by 42%.
Other sectors most likely to reduce their numbers are Material Suppliers (by 54.5%) and Consultants (by 45.6%).
Combining these figures shows an anticipated reduction in the construction workforce of 9.9% by September.