Image: WKOÖ/Christian Maislinger
The eight Economic Chamber officials spoke for around 9,500 companies and 100,000 employees during their joint appearance. “We have enough free capacity,” said Norbert Hartl, state guild master of the construction industry. According to KMU Research Austria, 45 percent of companies could accept an order immediately. That’s why the Upper Austrian Construction Industry Association is launching a campaign that is intended to “encourage people to build and renovate.” Until 2022/23 the situation was the other way around, with customers not even receiving offers from construction companies due to overfull order books.
According to Hartl, the drop in orders among companies that specialize in private residential construction is up to 80 percent. Social housing construction is stable, even if the upper limit on construction costs is challenging for the companies carrying out the work. In the industrial and commercial sectors, business is still going “reasonably”. Hartl: “We will see a number of bankruptcies in the next few months.” There are companies that have not prepared themselves for a time of crisis in the past good years. The majority of employees are to be retained despite the downturn, there are reductions in leasing staff and replacements are being made.
“It won’t get any cheaper,” said several representatives at the appearance in Linz. That’s why now is the right time to implement a construction or renovation project. Personnel costs continue to rise with wage increases; there will be a significant increase again in May. There is a stabilization in raw material and material costs – but at a significantly higher level than before Corona and the energy crisis. The climate protection requirements will make construction more expensive in the medium to long term.
It was also admitted that at least financing should become cheaper again due to the expected interest rate cuts. In any case, one should start planning a project, it was said on Tuesday, or variable financing could also be an alternative.
“Overslept and screwed up”
Were there alongside Hartl Martin Greiner, guild master of the construction trade, Hubert Wetschnig, chairman of the construction industry, Manfred Asamer, chairman of the stone and ceramic industry, Ferdinand Reisecker, chairman of the wood industry, Josef Simmer, chairman of the building materials, iron and wood trade, Josef Frauscher, master of the wood construction guild and Othmar Berner, master of the roofers’ guild, Glaziers and plumbers.
There is a special boom among roofers because hail will be a “client” in 2021, as Berner said. Not all of the houses damaged in the storm have still been repaired.
Hartl formulated demands for politicians: the abolition of the KIM regulation (stricter housing lending), the craftsman bonus, an investment allowance and the earmarking of housing subsidies. The tripling of the renovation funding was good. Greiner took the federal government harshly to task: it “overslept and screwed up” for a year and a half during which they warned about the slump in the construction industry.
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