Construction Figures Dip

by Toolbox Staff

Key construction indicators continued to trend downward in Alberta in the third quarter of 2016, according to figures released by the provincial government in July.

Both residential and non-residential construction investment were down compared to the same period in 2015. In the first three quarters of 2016, the drop in residential housing starts has been significant at 38 per cent less than the same period in 2015. All building permits were down by 22.4 per cent year-over-year to the end of September.

Non-residential construction investment also continued to slide. Industrial investment was down 32 per cent compared to the first three quarters of 2015. Compounding these decreases were a 7.8 per cent decrease in institutional and government construction and an almost 7.0 per cent drop in commercial construction, year-over-year.

However, there is some brighter news in the building permits data. Despite the value of building permits bottoming out at a five-year low of $885.8 million in June 2016, an upward trend is becoming more apparent. Since the low point in June, the value of Alberta’s building permits has surpassed the $1 billion mark, and continues to climb. At the time of writing this article, we were still waiting on October’s data. Based on the third-quarter trend, though, it seems the worst of it might over.