COVID -19 Impact on Construction Industry

The construction industry was just taking off to a good start when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The American construction sector saw the worst-ever fall in its history. Timelines stretched out without any concrete plan in the foreseeable future, investors got cold feet, safety regulations of the workers became a major issue and every single industrial construction company entered into the most challenging phase.

How Is the Construction Industry Affected Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic?

The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the construction industry. 

The risks were everywhere: people’s lives, livelihood and revenue. 

Everyone involved in this sector has been affected in one way or the other. Some lost jobs, some companies and some ended up with no salary. 

Here is how the coronavirus impacted the construction industry. 

Sharp Increase in Unemployment

The impact of coronavirus on the construction companies have created significant troubles for employees and workers at every position. 

In a survey by the Associated General Contractors of America, the construction sector’s unemployment rate increased from 4.7% in April 2019 to 16.6% in April 2020. Moreover, the construction unemployment declined by 975,000 jobs in April 2020 alone.

It is said to be the worst-ever decline in jobs in a single month in the construction sector.  

However, recently, the government is allowing companies to resume construction work in parts. Construction work is included in the first phase of New York’s reopening plan after a pregnant pause due to the coronavirus panic. It is expected that resuming some of the construction jobs would help to avoid unemployment issues and minimize lay-offs.

Canceled Projects and Loss of Funding

Some are pausing the construction work and hoping to resume when the situation gets better. Such a choice is better for the industrial construction company involved when compared to just cancel the project.

In fact, that’s what many seem to be doing. 31% of people have canceled the projects owing to a decrease in demand and 21% have canceled projects as they lost their private funding. Irrespective of the reason, canceling a major project can put the construction company in a delicate and vulnerable state, especially when there are very few opportunities out there to bag new projects. 

The Rise of a New Niche

While the typical construction companies have been suffering, there appears to be a new emerging niche in construction. As the safety of the people working is given the most importance, there is an acute need for disinfecting buildings and HVAC systems where the industrial building construction company is involved. Therefore, some are partnering with healthcare professionals to set up a new system to ensure complete safety against coronavirus. While this is still a new niche in the nascent stages, you can see an industrial contractor or two exploring it to create cash flow temporarily.

Remote Working at the Higher Levels

Unlike many other industries that are open to the idea of online marketing, construction companies are yet to explore it. Now the need has arisen for companies to seek out clients, conduct discussions and show the plans online. 

It is an unprecedented area and it makes things difficult. Since people are used to meeting face-to-face to collaborate and decide the planning and structure of the construction, these remote meetings are hard. But it’s the need of the hour and has such online meetings have the potential to make up for the current damages. 

So many construction companies are open to using many remote work environments for meetings and cloud platforms for sharing and collaborations. 

At Mirage Industrial Group, we are adopting new remote practices to safely work with our clients. We follow the highest safety standards and have updated our safety programs and compliance programs to ramp up the security of the workers as well as our clients. For any inquiries about construction by Mirage Industrial Group, please contact us here.