A Balanced Outlook for Construction
The Australian Construction Industry Forum has released its new ACIF Forecasts, with growth expected in non-residential building and infrastructure construction, but the decline in residential building activity expected to continue.
ACIF Forecasts has announced that building and construction work activity in Australia in 2017–18 has grown to $247 billion, accounting for 14% of GDP and nearly 10% of total employment.
“The outlook for the next few years is finely balanced. We expect the roll out of major infrastructure projects in railways, roads, electricity, water and sewerage to continue. Meanwhile, construction work in heavy industry including mining will return to an underlying downtrend over the next two years,” said Bob Richardson, Chair of ACIF’s Construction Forecasting Council, which oversees the production of the ACIF Forecasts.
Residential Building Expected to Decline
ACIF reports that residential building activity dropped by 0.5% in the year 2017–18, with the value of work done estimated at $101 billion. Though the construction pipeline is expected to maintain the current level over the next year, ACIF expects that residential building activity will experience a deeper decline from 2019–21.
Moderate Growth in Non-Residential Building
ACIF anticipates that non-residential building work will continue to experience moderate growth over the next three years, thanks to growth in accommodation, offices and other commercial, and increased government investment in service activity such as health, community services and education.
The full ACIF Forecast is available on the Australian Construction Industry Forum website.