Northern Ireland Construction Industry in Decline
Construction work in Northern Ireland is the hardest hit in the UK and is at its lowest level in a decade.
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) began carrying out a Construction Market Survey in 2000 to monitor changes in the workloads of surveyors. It was reported that some areas of the Northern Ireland construction industry found that the decline in work got faster between April and June of this year.
In the mid-2000s property prices increased due to a series of new building developments but this was followed by a more rapid decrease of projects. The construction industry is heavily motivated by the public sector meaning that the large public spending cuts that are being made are really making construction suffer. Currently, Northern Ireland also has to contend with high rates of unemployment, confidence in businesses deteriorating and dwindling activity in the private sector.
Jim Sammon, a spokesman for RICS Northern Ireland has expressed that "Northern Ireland's infrastructure has been under-funded for many years, and if we don't make the necessary investment now, our economy will continue to suffer from this well into the future."
