Building trade fears as 5,000 jobs lost

The Scottish building trade has shed 5,000 jobs in a year as new work dried up in the face of political and economic uncertainty.

The Scottish Building Federation (SBF) said it was concerned for the future of the trade after output also dropped by £1.5 billion year-on-year.

A £300 million uplift on the year in private housing investment was dwarfed by collective falls in the value of work from the commercial and public sectors and a drop off in new infrastructure spend following the completion of the Queensferry Crossing and Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route.

SBF managing director Vaughan Hart said: “Whilst it’s encouraging to see an increase in output from the housing sector over the past 12 months, other sectors of the industry are faring less well.”

The problems were compounded by the collapse of Carillion earlier this year, and Mr Hart said Interserve’s current difficulties were also a major concern.

“As we argued at the time of the collapse of Carillion, public procurement practices are in need of reform to ensure construction SME’s get further and fairer access to public sector opportunities,” Mr Hart said.

“As well as being good for those smaller businesses, this approach also spreads the risk for contracting authorities, making them less reliant on a few very large contractors and reducing the negative impact when major contractors like Interserve get into difficulties.”

Scottish Building Federation managing director Vaughan Hart.