Throughout much of 2019, MB warned that Australia’s construction industry was facing heavy job losses. For example, we wrote the following in our Christmas Special Report, released last month:
The biggest single downside risk to the Australian economy is the downturn in construction activity.
Gross fixed capital formation (GFCF), basically net investment, was already falling in the year to September 2019, down 3.6% in total driven by a 4.7% decline across the private sector:
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Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
