More than 4,000 jobs were cut by national home builders last week in what was described by analysts as the worst housing slide in 50 years.
Barratt Developments, one of the country’s best-known residential developers, announced that 1,200 jobs – a fifth of its workforce – were to be made redundant because of the credit crunch.
Elsewhere, Persimmon made 1,100 redundancies, Taylor Wimpey 900, Redrow 450 and Bovis Homes 400.
However, while commercial developers such as Ballymore, Miller Developments and Rok Developments were reportedly also set to axe smaller numbers of jobs, a spokesperson for the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (Ucatt) said the commercial sector was still relatively safe.
“There has been a severe downturn in house building, but while there’s been belt-tightening on the other side of the industry, and it’s not as healthy as it was 12 months ago, we don’t expect to see it get as bad,” the Ucatt spokesperson told Personnel Today.
“With the Olympics and building schools for the future, there is a healthy order book of government contracts keeping over 2,500 jobs in London.”
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