UK Construction Benefits From Housing Boom

Britain’s construction industry powered ahead in June as companies hired a record number of staff to cope with a sharp rise in house building.

A snapshot of the UK’s building sector signalled a positive contribution to the wider economy in the second quarter as new orders continued to pile up last month.

The Markit/CIPS construction PMI rose to 62.6 in June from 60 in May, where anything above 50 indicates growth. It matched February’s number, and beat City forecasts of a slight drop in the index to 59.5.

The pound rose to a near six-year high against the dollar when the data was published, to $1.718.

The biggest driver of growth was housebuilding, which jumped to 66.6 from 62.7 a month earlier, but commercial property building and civil engineering also continued to grow.

Bigger workloads encouraged companies to took on workers at the fastest rate since the survey began more than 17 years ago.

Tim Moore, senior economist at Markit, said the record job creation represented “a remarkable yardstick of progress as the sector looks to recover the ground lost over the past seven years.”

via The Guardian

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