Building costs slide 0.5% in August

Building costs fell by 0.5 per cent in August year on year, according to the Statistics Finland.

Labour costs fell by 0.3 per cent and the prices of materials by 0.6 per cent compared with that in August 2019. The prices of services rose by 0.1 per cent from one year ago.

The prices of materials have already fallen from October 2019 until June 2020. However, the total index of building costs has continued to show slight growth. Now, in August, the simultaneous fall in the prices of labour inputs and materials turned the year-on-year change in the total index of building costs to a decline.

The fall in labour input cost is explained by the development of the index of wage and salary earnings used as source data. Due to supplementation of the data, the data of the index of wage and salary earnings have become revised since the previous release of the Building Cost Index.

From July to August, the total index of building costs fell by 0.6 per cent. Labour costs went down by 0.9 per cent. The prices of materials and services both fell by 0.3 per cent.