That's the finding if the latest Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) construction market survey.
The survey shows that construction workloads have now remained in negative territory for five consecutive quarters, with 26% more surveyors reporting a fall rather than a rise in overall workloads up from a net balance of -45% in the first quarter.
But it was better news in non-housing public sector work where surveyors reported the most positive level of workloads since the fourth quarter of 2007 as increases in state spending filter through to education and other areas. RICS said there were also "tentative" signs of increased spending having an impact in public housing and infrastructure.
ADVERTISEMENTMeanwhile RICS said the outlook for the next 12 months is still "depressed", although less so than it was for the previous quarter.
Commenting, Simon Rubinsohn, RICS chief economist said:
“Activity is still declining across the construction sector but state spending is providing some much needed support for the construction industry with public sector works reaping the benefits. The improvement in news flow also appears to be filtering through to the private housing sector although workloads are still falling. Against this backdrop, the employment picture will deteriorate further with more redundancies likely to be announced in the sector over the balance of this year.”
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