Impact of COVID-19 on Australian Construction

About the report

Australia’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is having large ramifications for Australia’s economy, and for the building and construction industry in particular. Restrictions on travel and social gathering, the forced closure of businesses and major changes in working arrangements, are having a large impact on activity in many parts of the construction industry.

The outlook for activity has changed dramatically over the last few months and Macromonitor’s new report, The Impact of COVID-19 on Australian Construction, contains thoroughly researched and reliable estimates of the impact on each type of activity. We provide historical data and forecasts for each type of building and construction work, fully incorporating the effects of COVID-19.

The impact will vary greatly across the segments of building and construction work, with some sectors likely to fall precipitously, while others see little change, or even increase due to government stimulus measures. But overall, a combination of supply and demand side effects will cause a substantially lower amount of activity, and reduced demand for construction materials and other inputs and services, during 2020 and into 2021.

This report contains:

  • Written commentary on the outlook
  • Detailed explanations of the changes in our forecasts as a result of COVID-19
  • Data and forecasts of building and construction activity in every sector for the next ten years, plus ten years of historical data

The sectors covered in this report include:

  • Residential building (with data including numbers of approvals and commencements and value of work commenced and work done)
  • Non-Residential Building (with data including value of work commenced and value of work done)
  • Transport Infrastructure (in value of work done terms)
  • Utilities Construction (in value of work done terms)
  • Resources Construction (in value of work done terms)

Along with the written report, we also provide extensive data in Excel format, and charts in Powerpoint.