What a diabolical week. The swingeing job cuts - 4,000 across publicly quoted companies alone - make painful reading and all the signs are that things are going to get an awful lot worse. It's also been a jagged reminder of just how quickly the pendulum can swing, and how empty all that talk about an end to the business cycle was. City Lofts has became the first big casualty but a great many smaller firms look equally vulnerable. As we report this week, everyone from housebuilders to brickmakers are in more and more pain. Who knows how many boilermakers, carpet fitters and bathroom suppliers can't see where their next job is coming from? One of the more revealing stories this week was that recruitment agencies were charging professional such as land buyers a fee to look for jobs. Thank goodness contractors are not suffering the same upheavals as housebuilders, but the sector is feeling the blues as clients look to cancel or retender jobs and squeeze costs (pages 28 and 64). All this while the cost of energy, steel and concrete soars on the back of China's boom (as we report this week, China is consuming 35 of the world's steel output). This means that contractors are not benefiting from the deflationary effects of a downturn; rather, prices are rising strongly between the agreeing of the contract sum and the letting of the works packages. There's no magic spell for getting the industry out of this hole. That said, suggestions from some in the sector, including David Pretty, who chairs the new homes marketing board, ought to be given consideration. These include waiving stamp duty for first-time buyers on homes worth less than ￡250,000.
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