Capeb, the building trades union, warns of the difficulties of the profession. In the third quarter their business decreased by 5% compared to the same period in 2023.
Tired of waiting for more than a year for support measures for the real estate sector, the president of Capeb, the building trades union, warned on Thursday 12 December of a “fed-up insurrection” of the sector, weakened by the crisis real estate crisis.
“We have been waiting for more than a year for important decisions”, in particular on support for the renovation of buildings and apprenticeships in small construction companies, Jean-Christophe Repon, president of the Confederation of Crafts and Small Construction Companies (Capeb ).
“With the exception of a positive decree signed a few hours before the favorable resignation of the Barnier government stability of the MaPrimeRénov’ system in 2025, the common sense proposals presented by CAPEB have been suffering for several months climate of uncertainty generated by the dissolution of the National Assembly,” Capeb explains in a press release issued Thursday.
Its president praises the “responsible proposals” that do not increase the state budget and are not “a request for perfusion of the construction sector but for market access”, for example with reduced VAT rates and more subsidies for energy renovation, which will generate “ activities and tax revenue”.
“I’m tired of repeating our requests and not being able to tell the artisans whether the issues we are promoting are moving forward or not,” he laments, signaling a feeling of exasperation and misunderstanding in the profession.
14,000 business failures
In the third quarter, the activity of building tradesmen decreased for the fifth consecutive quarter, by 5% compared to the same period in 2023.
“For the moment, orders are holding up,” adds Jean-Christophe Repon, but “between 7,000 and 9,000 jobs have been destroyed in 2023, while we should create more,” given the context of strong needs for energy renewal.
“The number of apprentices is currently around 7% lower than last year. This is a strong sign of the decline in activity: companies decide not to take on apprentices because they cannot plan ahead in two years’ time,” underlines the representative of building craftsmen.
In this context, businesses fail: between November 2023 and October 2024, the Banque de France counted 14,214 business failures in the construction sector, of which 14,121 were SMEs.