The fall in GDP wasn't as big as we thought thanks to stronger than estimated construction activity. That is the assessment of the statisticians who put together the national accounts.

But is this good news or bad news for construction?

The statisticians take was that construction output in the UK fell 0.8% in the second quarter compared to the 2.2% drop posted when the second quarter GDP figures were released in late August.

This less pessimistic assessment of the construction sector helped lead the statistician to trim their calculation in the latest quarterly national accounts and put the fall in GDP at 0.6% instead of 0.7%.

The revision was not totally unexpected, as the official construction output data for Great Britain, which varies a bit from the data plugged into the UK GDP calculation, showed a fall of just 0.5% for the second quarter.

This suggested a fairly hefty revision once this survey-based data was used to replace the model-based forecast used in earlier takes on the construction contribution to GDP.

Now the temptation for those less familiar with construction would be to read this and put a positive spin on it saying construction was doing far better than we thought.

Well in one sense that may be true. But, and here is where it all gets a bit weird, it could be that the upward revision is not a reflection of good news, but of bad news for those in construction. And here's why.

The revision upward could be down to any number of factors in the model.

But it may be that the statisticians put in a reasonable estimate for the amount of work done in cash terms, but underplayed the fall in prices in their model.

This would naturally lead to an upward reassessment of the amount of actual work done, as you would get more work for your money. But it would mean that construction firms were cutting their costs even deeper than the statisticians originally estimated. That from a construction point of view is not good news.

Confused? Well don't worry. The numbers don't alter the reality.

But it may be worth being a bit wary of people suggesting the upward revision in GDP is yet another green shoot.

It may just be a reflection of construction firms being screwed down harder on price than was previously thought, which frankly is a rather more like having a pernicious weed in the industry's garden.

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