The Production in Building and Construction Index (PBCI) is a volume index based on the value of ‘work done’ in the Residential, Non-Residential and Civil Engineering sectors. Provisional PBCI data for Q2 2020 are based on work done in April, May and June 2020. Due to restrictions imposed by the Government relating to COVID-19, construction sites shut down on March 28th and began to reopen from May 18th resulting in over six lost working weeks (approximately half the quarter).
Data for this release were collected during the months July, August and September 2020. Due the disruption in the industry the response rate fell below what would normally be expected. As per previous releases, the data for Q2 2020 are provisional for this release and final revised data will be published for Q2 2020 in December (along with provisional data for Q3 2020). In this release we are also publishing final results for Q1 2020. Due to the resumption of activity on May 18th there are significantly more surveys returned for Q1 than were returned at the last (provisional) release in June.
Weights
The PBCI index weights are based on 2015 data (base year = 2015) and may not reflect the current distribution of economic activity in the sector due to the Covid-19 crisis.
Quarter 3 2020
The CSO wishes to thank all those enterprises who supplied their Building and Construction data for quarter 2 and urge them to continue to do so for quarter 3, even where work done may be reduced or nil, if an enterprise has temporarily stopped operation. Such information is still needed to measure the precise impact of the crisis on the construction sector. The quarter 3 PBCI is planned for publication on 2nd December.
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