Government construction output figures for the first three months of 2009 highlight the biggest falls on record, the Construction Products Association has warned.
The Office for National Statistics figures show construction output fell an 16 per cent in Q1 2009 compared with the same quarter a year earlier.
The fall is in line with the Construction Products Associations own forecasts.
The Associations economics director Noble Francis said: A large number of jobs have already been lost and there is clearly a lot of pain still to be had.
Other figures from the report showed that industrial new build fell 40 per cent compared to a year ago and
Output in the commercial sector fell by 26 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to a year earlier.
Over 25 per cent of the sector has been lost in the past year and with new orders in commercial falling 55 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to a year earlier, output will be expected to fall further.
Even in infrastructure, expected to be buoyed by significant workloads in rail, output in the first quarter of 2009 was 5 per cent lower than one year earlier.
