As of: January 18, 2024, 5:18 p.m
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Cranes and scaffolding are on the construction site of an apartment building.
© Bernd Wüstneck/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa/Symbolbild
Housing construction projects in Thuringia are rather rare - the construction industry relies on infrastructure investments from the state and municipalities.
And she fears a rather weak economic year.
Ettersburg - Thuringia's construction industry wants to prevent layoffs despite the crisis in housing construction.
“There are no job cuts planned.
The companies are happy that they have good staff,” said the general manager of the construction industry association, Burkhard Siebert, on Thursday at an industry meeting at Ettersburg Castle near Weimar.
Experts are still being sought at certain points.
According to him, around 14,300 people are employed in the construction industry with an annual turnover of more than two billion euros in Thuringia.
“Housing construction is in dire straits”
The association assumes that the crisis in housing construction will not start this year.
From January to October 2023, sales of residential construction companies fell by 13.4 percent; more recent figures are not yet available.
“Housing construction is in dire straits.
Projects are stopped or just completed.”
There are only a few new orders in sight in this area because home builders are holding back due to high interest rates and construction costs and investors are hardly expecting a return.
“We have a bleak forecast for housing construction” - despite high demand, and not just in social housing.
Stable public investments expected
This year, the construction industry and the main construction trade are particularly relying on infrastructure investments from the state and municipalities, said Siebert.
It's about road, rail and energy projects.
“Politicians have recognized that investments need to be made.” Commercial construction is also continuing - the decline in sales in this area last year up to the end of October, at 2.2 percent, was not as dramatic as in residential construction.
According to the association's managing director, the Thuringian construction industry is expecting a sideways economic movement in 2024 - i.e. stagnating sales at around the level of 2023. "The public sector is an important client" - it could ensure a certain basic capacity utilization in the construction industry.
Bureaucracy more than a nuisance
The association expects politicians to at least keep the investment budgets of the state and municipalities stable and to give companies more economic leeway.
There is a lot of talk about reducing bureaucracy - but ultimately more and more documents and “paperwork” are necessary.
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Thuringia's State Secretary for Economic Affairs Barbara Schönig reiterated that the public sector remains a "reliable partner for the construction industry".
The Free State of Thuringia spends more than 350 million euros annually on building construction as well as on city and school construction funding.
In the period from 2019 to 2023, more than 1,500 new subsidized apartments were approved.
Schönig spoke of the country's enormous challenges in the construction sector, including road construction and energy-efficient building renovations.
With a view to the need for investment, she advocated a reform of the debt brake.
“If we want modern apartments, universities, schools, clinics, museums, theaters, police stations, courts and administrative buildings in the future, then we have to be aware that we cannot cope with these tasks by saving and saving money.” dpa