Consultants Euro survey hints at stabilisation

The latest Corona Study by Europe’s engineering consultants association, EFCA, concluded that there are signs of stabilisation in the construction industry, with fewer projects lost and a smaller drop in new orders, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The association representing Europe’s engineering consultancy industry conducted its survey between 1 and 7 September and incorporated responses from 19 member nations.

On average, 11% of respondents said they were still being affected “to a large extent” by project losses, compared with 22% in the previous survey.

In the new survey, none of the respondents said they were being ’completely or almost completely’ affected by a loss of new orders, where 6% of respondents gave the same response in the previous survey. Furthermore, 15% of respondents said their level of orders had not changed due to the crisis, whereas, in the previous survey, only 5% said oder levels were unaffected.

EFCA also found that levels of both temporary and permanent staff layoffs had dropped, although it concluded that, while public sector operations have been affected to some extent, private sector and export business have been affected to a significant degree.