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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Spain
Index
The rise and fall of Spanish construction activity
tended to
parallel the ebb and flow of the general economy. During
the
1960s and the 1970s, a genuine boom occurred in
construction, but
it was more a reflection of the strong increase in tourism
than a
response to housing needs that had been created by
industrial and
urban growth. Extensive demand for hotels, apartment
buildings,
vacation housing, and amenities in tourist centers
absorbed the
attention of much of the construction industry.
During the 1974 to 1984 period, the construction
industry,
like the rest of the economy, was in the doldrums. The
year 1985
was an especially poor one for construction, but, as the
pace of
economic activity increased in 1986, there was also a
notable
acceleration in construction. Cement consumption increased
by
10.2 percent, compared with 1985; new private-sector
housing
starts increased by 10 percent; and construction
expenditures
rose by 5 percent. The construction boom was even stronger
in
1987, when the industry registered an increase of 10
percent, the
highest rate of growth in all Spanish industries. In the
same
year, the construction sector came to represent 7 percent
of the
country's GDP. Strong industrial expansion continued
throughout
1988, and much of Spain's new construction was
concentrated on
urban offices, private housing, and tourist facilities.
Employment has increased in all of Spain's
nonagricultural
sectors, but the construction industry showed the greatest
relative increase--11.2 percent--as a result of the 88,100
new
jobs it created in 1986. By comparison, there had been
only 7,300
new construction jobs in 1985, and there had been and a
decrease
of 110,400 jobs in 1984. In the late 1980s, overall
construction
employment accounted for approximately one-third of the
industrial work force. Despite the boom, however, the
sector
still operated at a level considerably below its capacity
in the
late 1980s, and the unemployment rate among Spanish
construction
workers was as high as 30 percent.
Data as of December 1988
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