Construction spending down in April
On a seasonally adjusted basis, monthly investment in building construction in Alberta was down 19.5 per cent in April compared to February
By 23 June 2020 1 min read
After an already weak year in 2019, Alberta’s construction sector has been hit hard by COVID-19 and the oil price crash.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, monthly investment in building construction* in Alberta was down $328.4 million (-19.5 per cent) in April compared to February.
Nationally, investment fell by $7.6 billion (-47.9 per cent) over the same period. The difference is explained by more stringent pandemic-related restrictions on construction activity in other parts of the country, especially in Quebec and Ontario.
Residential construction in Alberta was down by $310.3 million (-30.8 per cent) in April compared to February.
The decline was less pronounced on the non-residential front with investment down by $18.1 million (-2.7 per cent) over the same period.
Taking a longer view, we see that the drop-off in activity during the pandemic exacerbated a pullback that took place in 2019.
Between 2018 and 2019, annual investment in building construction in Alberta fell by $2.5 billion (-10.8 per cent). Over the same period, spending in the country as a whole increased by $5.3 billion (+3.0 per cent).
In this sense, Alberta’s construction sector had a shorter distance to fall during the pandemic than the national sector. It also suggests that, even if we catch up to where we were before the COVID-19 shock, we will still have a ways to go before the full vigour of Alberta’s construction sector is restored.
*The investment in residential and non-residential building construction represents the spending value of building construction by households, enterprises and governments for buildings, excluding the value of land.
Monthly investment in building construction in Alberta was down $328.4 million in April 2020 compared to February 2020
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