RT calls attention to a report in The Economist from Sept. 7, warning that Germany’s crucial construction industry is “on the brink of collapse”—putting in jeopardy the economic as a whole. The report says the sector makes up 12% of the country’s GDP and employs a million construction workers.
“We are sending our construction industry into the abyss,” they quote the chief executive of German housing giant Vonovia, Rolf Buch, as saying.
The article indicated that despite the German government’s pledge to build 400,000 flats a year, industry estimates have shown that about 700,000 a year are needed, “not least to house the more than 1 million Ukrainians” taking shelter in Germany. Last year, just 295,000 new buildings were built. Buch described the resulting shortage of affordable housing in parts of the country as a “societal tinderbox.”
