5,000 construction jobs in West Midlands could be at risk
The West Midlands is set to lose nearly 5,000 jobs a year over the next five years as the construction industry continues to decline in the region, a new report warned today.
Construction in the West Midlands, including Staffordshire and Shropshire, faces the worst outlook of any other region in the country as companies continue to axe staff or go out of business in the face of shrinking workloads.
As a result, a delegation is set to meet ministers in Downing Street tomorrow to plead for special aid to support the struggling industry.
The latest Construction Skills Network report, out today, shows the struggling industry is still in recession in the region after suffering a 12 per cent fall in output in the last year, with the prospects for another decade of pain.
Thousands of jobs have been lost and hundreds of companies big and small have gone to the wall since the financial crisis hit five years ago, and the latest Construction Skills Network report shows the outlook for the West Midlands will continue to be grim.
Nationwide around 60,000 jobs were lost in construction last year. Today's report, drawn up by sector skills council CITB-Construction Skills, predicts a 1.4 per cent fall in output in the region every year until 2017 – the worst outlook in the country.