Construction workers had the second largest pay increases of any sector, up 8.5pc over the year, to bring average weekly pay to €961.97
Fears of skills shortages holding back housing plans appear to have been misplaced, as recruitment ramps up at an accelerated pace in tandem with new orders.
Monthly Construction Sector data published on Monday shows sustained growth of employment, with staffing levels up for the sixth month running in response to higher new orders.
The rate of job creation eased in May but the overall trend combined with previous Central Statistics Office (CSO) wage data, suggests builders have been able to find and employ workers for schemes as their workloads increase, but at the cost of higher pay.
Figures published at the end of May showed construction workers had the second largest pay increases of any sector, up 8.5pc over the year, to bring average weekly pay to €961.97.
The BNP Paribas Real Estate Ireland Construction Total Activity Index posted a reading just below the 50.0 ‘no-change’ mark in May to signal broadly stable output in the sector midway through the second quarter of the year.
However, a sub reading for housing shows that part of the market is in expansion mode and potentially benefiting for a slow down in other types of building work.
Although input costs continued to increase sharply during May amid higher material prices, the pace of inflation eased to a four-month low. Meanwhile, companies signalled an improvement in supplier performance for the first time in 10 months. Lead times on the delivery of inputs shortened modestly, but to the greatest extent since October 2010.
Commenting on the latest survey results, John McCartney, Director & Head of Research at BNP Paribas Real Estate Ireland, said May saw continued increases in activity across the key residential and commercial segments.
“The former is no surprise – even looking through disruption which may have been caused by the development contributions waiver deadline in April, housing commencements have been on a sustained upward trend since October 2022. On the commercial side, activity has been driven by office construction in Dublin where more space was delivered in Q1 than in the entire of 2023,” he said.
Forward-looking indicators on the dashboard are now uniformly pointing in the direction of continued expansion, he said.
