Pressure mounted on the Government to stimulate construction after the latest jobs figures showed another big quarterly decline.
Since the industry peaked in September 2008 a staggering 246,000 jobs have been shed from construction, according to the new Government figures.
This equates to about one in 10 of the workforce.
The new figures for the fourth quarter of last year show construction employment fell 8,000 to 2,128,000.
This number is 50,000 down on the same period a year before.
Figures last month showed redundancies in the fourth quarter were also up 11,000 on the previous year.
Brian Green, industry analyst at Brickonomics, said: "With construction work looking like it is on the slide again and with the increasing noises coming from contractors about restructuring for less work, we should expect the fall in job numbers to continue for some time."
