Construction companies see no prospect of improvement

No other sector of the economy had

performance in recent years

. In the first quarter of the year, the sector's GDP, which includes both the earnings of construction firms and workers' wages, declined by 2.2% over the same period in 2017. This is the 16th consecutive decline. And companies see no prospect of improvement.

"The situation of the construction industry has not really improved, what we see is that the pace of the slowdown is decreasing, but it continues to decline," says the vice president of the economy of SindusCon-SP. Union of Construction Industry of the State of São Paulo), Eduardo Zaidan.

The badysis of the executive reflects the situation of companies and also the reality of the sector's labor market. Although the pace of layoffs in construction has dropped significantly, there is no indication that businesses will start hiring. In the last 12 months ended in April, 58,000 vacancies were closed. In the previous 12 months, there had been 431 thousand.

On the other hand, the confidence of the business man – an important factor for hiring to resume and the segment to start moving again – fell after the truckers' strike. In June, he scored 79.3 points, up from 82.4 in May.

"The country is really in a jungle without a dog, we have a very great insecurity that prevents the creation of jobs and hampers the decision-making process of the consumer," says entrepreneur Milton Bigucci, owner of the construction company MBigucci. "Even without debt, my company will not release more real estate than it should."

He says that the construction company has launched four projects this year and has six other projects, already approved by the city of São Paulo, in the drawer. The company will only launch new launches when it will feel like the consumer is more confident in buying a property.

"Uncertainties in the economy and politics are very strong and the industry believes that the customer is more uncertain than at the beginning of the year," says Bigucci,

Distraction

Faced with this crisis scenario, neither the approval in the House of the bill that regulates distractions – as they say exemptions from real estate – does not seem to encourage Bigucci. "The pacification of the distractions would not make me throw the six projects (put away), but I would throw four more safely."

During the crisis, many people returned real estate purchased at the factory and this became a nightmare for builders, who had failed products, to repay the buyers. The sector claims regulation to reduce losses when there is a return.

For Alexander Frankel, owner of the construction company Vitacon, the consumer is even more afraid. "The uncertainties have made anticipating the concerns about the election, which would be a short three-month storm has become a stirring six months".

According to him, the company has not revised the goal of launching nine companies this year because it believed that sales should improve after the October trial. .

Zaidan also predicted that 2018 would be the year of recovery, but the reality has turned out to be different, he says. "Until May, we had hopes that the economy could react, but after that, everything changed.

For him, the construction situation comes from the lack of investment. "Construction is reactive to the state of the economy, the works correspond to 50% of investments in the country, with the current investment volume, no maintenance or maintenance of infrastructure, let alone building. " The information comes from the newspaper "O Estado de S. Paulo".