(Montreal) The construction industry in Quebec should remain above 200 million working hours in 2023 and 2024, while the residential sector is still lagging behind other sectors.
The Quebec Construction Commission published its forecasts for 2024 earlier this week and it appears that the industry will continue to be strong, generally speaking, despite a slight decline.
The CCQ expects the industry to record 207.5 million hours of work in 2023 and 202 million hours in 2024.
Two sectors of the industry stand out in 2023 “against all expectations”, given the “less favorable economic context this year”, according to the CCQ. These are the institutional-commercial and civil engineering-roads sectors.
Thus, the institutional-commercial sector will reach an “unprecedented level” in 2023 with 119 million hours, an increase of 1%.
And this institutional-commercial sector will continue to perform well in 2024, believes the CCQ. “It is in particular public investments, more specifically investments in hospital projects, seniors’ homes and schools that will make it possible to achieve a record year,” explains the Commission.
As for the civil engineering-roads sector, it is expected to record some 40 million working hours in 2023, an increase of 3%.
Moreover, for this sector, the CCQ recalls that the year 2024 will see the continuation of other work: the extension of the blue metro line in Montreal, the repair of the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine bridge-tunnel and the repair the Ville-Marie and Viger tunnels, among others.
The residential sector will be “the only one to decline this year”. It is expected to lose 14% to reach 36.5 million working hours. The decrease in construction starts began in 2022. The residential sector is particularly affected by the increase in interest rates and construction costs, notes the CCQ.
The CCQ expects the difficulties in the residential sector to continue in 2024, with another drop of 12%.
“We have to go back to 2016 to see such a low number of construction starts,” notes the CCQ in its portrait of the industry.