New Zealand Residential Construction Heals After Post-Pandemic Hit

In line with its zero-Covid policy, the New Zealand government placed the entirety of the country into an alert level 4 lockdown, following the Delta outbreak of Covid-19 in August of last year. It came as no surprise that due to the significant limit on economic activity during lockdown, the 2021 thirdly quarter review showed massive contraction.

The prevention of non-essential construction works was put in place and as such, the New Zealand economy recorded its second-largest quarterly contraction since current records began. Thankfully, the losses were far softer than the projected 7%.

Residential construction completions were relatively more resilient, recording a contraction of only 6.4%, as opposed to the overall construction drop of 8.6%.

A far brighter outlook follows, however, with residential construction in New Zealand booming throughout 2022. In the first ten months of 2021, the number of building consents rose 23.5%, compared to the first ten months of 2020.

GlobalData currently expects the New Zealand construction industry to record a growth of 7.8% in 2022.