Demolition survey reveals impact of Covid-19

By Murray Pollok22 May 2020

The profound impact of Covid-19 on Europe’s demolition industry is revealed in a new survey by the European Demolition Association (EDA), with more than a quarter of demolition contractors reporting cancelled projects and 63% experiencing rescheduled projects.

EDA surveyed contractors in 18 countries between 6 and 15 May and the results spell out the scale of disruption to their businesses. More than 40% of respondents reported temporarily closing their businesses for more than two weeks, while a further 13% closed for between one and two weeks.

EDA2

Proportion of demolition contractors reporting cancelled or rescheduled projects.

Cancellations of projects scheduled for this year, although not wholesale, are significant, with 16% of respondents reporting that between 5% and 20% of their projects have been cut, and a further 12% with more than a fifth of their 2020 projects cancelled.

Of Europe’s major economies, it looks like Spain and France will be worst hit by cancellations. Almost half of French and 38% of Italian contractors reported projects being cut this year.

Ongoing projects have been significantly impacted, with almost a third reported closed sites and just 56% reported that their sites were open. There is significant geographical variation, however, with 93% of Swedish contracts reporting that their sites were open, contrasting with 53% open in the UK and 50% in Germany.

EDA1

Responses to the question, ’are your project sites open?’

More encouraging is the finding that 74% of French contractors said their sites were open, while 69% of Italian contractors also reported open sites.

More than a third of respondents have made redundancies as a result of the pandemic, with a further 27% making temporary job cuts. Only a third of contractors had made no changes to their workforces.

The full report is available on-line, at no cost.

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