Building costs fall by 0.5% in December

Building costs fell by 0.5 per cent in December 2020 compared with that in the previous year, according to the Statistics Finland.

Labour costs went down by 1.4 per cent. The prices of materials and services rose by 0.1 per cent compared to one year ago.

The fall in labour costs is affected by the reduced pension insurance contributions of employers in the private sector.

Due to coronavirus, pension contributions were temporarily lowered from May 2020 until the end of the year.

From November to December, the total index of building costs fell by 0.2 per cent.

The prices of materials fell by 0.4 per cent from that in the previous month. Labour costs and prices of services remained unchanged month on month.