The German construction industry wants to largely leave its delivery problems behind in spring 2022 and is therefore looking ahead with optimism.

The industry's sales are likely to rise nominally by 5.5 percent to 151 billion euros in the next year, the two associations HDB and ZDB said at a joint press conference on Thursday.

Since construction work is likely to rise by a further 4 percent on average over the year, this corresponds to an increase of 1.5 percent when adjusted for inflation.

"We expect a further increase in employees by 10,000 to 915,000 employees."

Material shortages due to the Corona crisis and the resulting rising costs have been a burden for the industry for a long time.

The peak of the dynamic in purchase prices "seems to have been exceeded for important building materials, but prices are still at a high level," declared the Main Association of the German Construction Industry (HDB) and the Central Association of the German Building Industry (ZDB).

Revenue falls due to the virus pandemic

The burdens caused by the virus pandemic and the increased costs are making themselves felt in sales.

For the year that is coming to an end, the industry expects only a meager increase in nominal revenues in the construction industry by 0.5 percent to 143.5 billion euros.

In real terms, however, due to the increased prices in 2021, this is a decrease of 6 percent.

"In the meantime, construction companies have managed to some extent to pass on this pressure on the purchasing side to the market with new contracts."

The capacity utilization is currently 80 percent, explained HDB boss Peter Huebner and ZDB president Reinhard Quast.

Surveys showed cautious optimism for the coming year.

The reason is the high order backlog and the confidence that "delivery difficulties and the dynamics of price developments in the purchase of building materials will give way in the second quarter of 2022".

In commercial construction, sales will rise nominally by 6 percent next year, in residential construction by as much as 7 percent, while public construction is only likely to increase by 2 percent.