COVID-19: Key global impacts on the construction industry and proposed coping strategies

Abstract

The construction industry is an essential tributary of the global economy and an important resource in the overall product of the local economies. In December 2019, the construction industry was exposed to a shock beyond the local level as a result of COVID-19, which was classified by the World Health Organization as a global pandemic after its rapid and sudden spread in multiple countries. The nature of the effects of COVID-19 on the construction industry varied according to the diversity of its projects. The pandemic raised many challenges at the level of the workforce, low or halting productivity, production time and costs, as well as disputes in contractual formulas for construction projects. But some of the effects were more severe and caused consequences for all stakeholders in the construction sector. Researchers and those interested in the construction industry have dealt with the repercussions of COVID-19, but most of the publications focused on studying the impact of the pandemic on the local construction industry, so this paper attempts to shed light on the most prominent effects of COVID-19 on the construction industry around the world, and which were repeated with high frequency in previous studies and reports by following the methodology of review, analysis and selection, and then suggesting optimal coping strategies to reduce the damages of these effects.