ABSTRACT
The construction industry is responsible for the provision, repair, maintenance and demolition of buildings of all kinds, including their internal finishes and services, and also the wide variety of other types of structure–such as roads, bridges and dams–embraced by the term ‘civil engineering works’. Over the last decade or so it has suffered a severe contraction in both absolute and relative size: while gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 16 per cent over the period 1973–85, construction output fell by 15 per cent. None the less it remains one of the nation’s largest industries, currently contributing around 6 per cent of GDP, as against 7.6 per cent in 1973 (a peak year). It is three times as large as agriculture and nearly twice as large as the largest manufacturing industry; it is rivalled in size only by broad service sectors such as distribution. These figures, however, probably understate the relative position of construction because of the importance nowadays of unrecorded work carried out in the ‘hidden’ or ‘black’ economy.
