Durban - The South African building and construction industry continues to struggle amid tough economic conditions, according to the results of the 2019Q3 cidb SME Confidence Survey conducted from August 14 to September 2.
The cidb SME business conditions survey is conducted quarterly among Grades 3-8 cidb-registered contractors for general building and civil industries. The main indicator used for analysis purposes is business confidence. A business confidence index can vary between zero (extreme lack of confidence) and 100 (extreme confidence).
Ntando Skosana, project manager for monitoring and evaluation, said: “Sentiment remained in the doldrums as contractors continued to experience a severe shortage of work. In fact, for some of the sub-sectors, activity was at its weakest level since the 2008/09 financial crisis.”
Building confidence remained largely unchanged in the third quarter, gaining one index point following the depressed reading of 30 registered in the previous quarter.
Skosana said “low confidence was underpinned by a further and deeper decline in activity”. Also, "amid the lack of demand, there is no sign in the survey data to suggest that activity will pick up in the near term”.
On a provincial level, confidence improved in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal. But Skosana notes that building activity slowed sharply with the activity indicator now "at its worst level on record”.
The Western Cape also experienced a severe shortage of building work.
Provincially, it was the worst performer, with a drop in confidence to a new historic low of 9 index points due to a sharp slowdown in activity.