The onset of the coronavirus pandemic since early 2020 has significantly harmed the construction industry. Across the globe, countries reported major delays in construction projects due to shortages in materials and inefficiencies/unavailability of labour. Additionally, with the constant flurry of lock-downs and movement restrictions, many scheduled projects saw themselves canceled or delayed.

According to Birendra Pandey, Director of Construction Business at GlobalData, of all the projects listed in GlobalData’s Construction Intelligence Center (CIC) in April 2020, over 15% faced cancelation or delays due to the virus. This is around 3% and 6% normally.

While delays and disruptions to supply chains swept the world, some countries saw their construction industries hit worse than others. In Asia, the construction industry faced disruptions but lower due to their management of the spread. The United States also faced fewer delays in early 2020 due to their late enforcement of lockdowns. However, Europe and the Middle East were amongst the worst hit with up to 20% of scheduled projects canceled in the summer of 2020.

A Few Reasons Responsible for Construction Delays

Materials – the shortage and rising costs

Global supply chains faced severe disruptions during the pandemic. The construction industry saw an increase in material shortages. Due to most raw materials being shipped in from Asia along with border restrictions, travel times saw a whopping increase from six weeks to nearly six months.

The lack of raw materials thus caused a massive increase in accessible products. The Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) issued Construction Inflation Alert in April 2021. This stated that between April 2020 to February 2021 material prices for construction increased by nearly 13%.

Government regulations and construction delays

With the imposition of lockdowns and government regulations, many construction projects lacked the required workforce needed to complete the task on time. Thus, creating a labour inefficiency due to the lack of ability to work freely around the clock.

Omicron and other variants

With a new variant of the virus emerging every season, each one more contagious than the last, many workers face a hard time coming to work. The lack of labour reduces the speed at which the project reaches completion. Additionally, many construction workers suffered unemployment during the peak of the pandemic leading to the current labour shortage.

Many may hope that in the year 2022 that construction delays would ease with countries beginning to lessen restrictions. However, according to industry analysis, contractors across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa expect the Covid-19 pandemic to affect their projects until at least 2023.