Engineering News reports that monitoring and evaluation project manager at the Construction Industry Development Board (Cidb), Ntando Skosana, on Tuesday described the loss of 140,000 jobs in the local construction industry between the first and third quarters of this year as “disheartening”.  

The construction industry is an important job creator in the country, having a multiplier effect.  These job losses are said to be a reflection of the pressure that the construction industry is under.  There were 0.8% and 0.5% contractions in the construction industry quarter-on-quarter in the first and second quarters of the year.  Since 2008, the construction industry has created around 184,000 jobs, however, this had not been enough to accommodate the new entrants in the labour force.  From a provincial perspective, four provinces stand out in terms of their contribution to employment in the construction sector, namely the Eastern Cape, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape.  Over the past two quarters, Gauteng has shed 113,000 jobs.  “This is of major concern, because Gauteng contributes around 28% to total construction employment,” noted Skosana.

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