黑洞社区

This year has not been the best for construction. Instead of record profits and pay rises to match, it鈥檚 been a year dogged by uncertainty, the thinnest of margins and constrained wage growth.

The crises hitting Galliford Try, Interserve and Kier in recent months symbolise the struggle of contractors to maintain profitability in the face of shrinking margins. Just last month Sir John Parker, the chair of Laing O鈥橰ourke, described construction as being 鈥渋n a troubled state鈥� and warned that 鈥渁 number of key lending banks have signalled their exit from the sector.鈥� And KPMG recently warned that the number of construction companies going into administration rose by 55% in the third quarter of this year compared with the previous one.

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