<div class="news-title">Builders' Union: The government must not repeat the mistakes of the 2008 crisis

Prague - The state must not repeat the mistakes made after the crisis year 2008. At that time, unnecessary restrictions on investments slowed down construction much more than most other sectors. Jiří Nouza, president of the Czech Construction Entrepreneurs Association, said this to ČTK today. He believes that the impacts of current measures against the spread of coronavirus could reach billions of crowns. Analysts expect that construction may drive the economy's recovery once the measures are lifted.

"It's naturally still early to quantify the losses accurately in any way. However, there is no doubt that the impacts will be significant and could reach billions of crowns. Financial losses will undoubtedly affect employment, business development, and investments. We can only hope that the public sector, whether the state or municipalities and regions, will not repeat the mistakes that deepened the crisis of 2008," Nouza stated. According to him, the state should understand that limiting investments at this moment means knocking the Czech economy to the very bottom.

The construction sector in the Czech Republic was hit by the crisis in 2008 much harder than most other sectors. Since 2008, it declined for five consecutive years. During this time, it lost almost 30 percent of its revenue in total. According to most analysts and people in the field, this was due to extensive cuts in large infrastructure projects made by the then government.

At the end of the third quarter of last year, 378,464 employees and self-employed individuals were working in construction companies in the Czech Republic. Compared to the same period in the pre-crisis year of 2008, their number was nearly one-tenth lower. The largest outflow of workers occurred between 2012 and 2013, when the sector lost around 16,000 people.

According to ČTK's information, large construction companies are not interrupting their production. An exception is Eurovia CS, which suspended all construction work and office activities for 14 days last Wednesday. In other companies, employees are allowed to work from home as much as possible, but this is not feasible on construction sites. Some are operating in emergency mode, introducing alternating shifts, and advising employees to cancel external meetings.

"We are experiencing greater difficulties in civil engineering, where access to construction materials is worsening every day, and some workers are starting to be missing. Our suppliers are facing the same issues. We expect that the situation regarding access to construction materials will generally continue to worsen," said Edita Novotná, spokesperson for Strabag, for example.

According to analysts, construction could be a driving force for economic recovery after the measures against the spread of coronavirus are lifted. It is not so dependent on foreign trade. They added that the current crisis's impacts on construction cannot yet be quantified. They stated that the construction sector will struggle with a decline in projects because people will postpone large investments, such as building houses.