Articles

As part of our broader modelling of industry and regional economic activity, we have recently updated our estimates of construction industry employment, along with forecasts out to 2030. And after 13 years of an expanding workforce, the near-term prospects for construction are challenging.

In late 2023, we established a split of our non-residential building forecasts into consents for new buildings and consents for alterations and additions (A&A). At the time, we noted the long-term trend in non-residential construction towards new building, and predicted that this trend would continue...

Aggregates are important. But how important is clouded by a lack of quality data being collected. Based on current production figures and survey response rates, the actual amount of aggregates produced over the last 12 years might be 49% higher than reported.

The government’s multifaceted approach to try and improve the affordability of housing has included several announcements around possible changes to the building consent and inspection framework, aimed at improving the efficiency of the system and reducing compliance costs.

Building costs, like prices across most of the economy, surged higher between 2021 and 2023, as a result of supply chain disruptions, capacity constraints, labour shortages, and strong demand conditions.

To say that 2024 has been tough on both construction workers and employers is putting it mildly. In this article we use Stats NZ’s employment stocks and flows series to understand where construction workers typically come from, and where they head after construction.

Two surveys over the last week have shown rebounding business confidence, despite there being little evidence of an economic recovery any time soon, apart from the start of the easing cycle in interest rates.

The commercial property market has always been more difficult to track and analyse than the housing market.

Updated data from Stats NZ shows that completion numbers for new dwellings have largely tracked as we had estimated over the last two years, pushing to a record high of 43,160 at the end of 2023.

The annual total of new dwelling consents slipped to 36,453 in January 2024, down 29% from its May 2022 peak. The sharp drop in consents over the last two years probably overstates the downturn in residential construction activity, just as the strong and persistent growth...