The French construction sector’s performance weakened month-on-month in November, according to a l’Institut National de la Statistique et des Études Économiques (Insee) report monitored by Kallanish. This followed previous improvement in September and October.

Last month companies said they are less optimistic about the prospects for future activity and the general state of the French construction industry, the report suggests.

In November, business managers’ opinion on the change in their staff size over the last three months has also deteriorated.

As many companies than in the previous month considered their order-books to be well-filled. Companies also assess their order-books as providing eight months of work, higher than the long-term average of 5.7 months.

The production capacity utilisation rate was stable last month on October after an increase in the two previous months. At the same time, 46% of companies reported production bottlenecks due to workforce shortages, a stable figure compared to October.

In November, slightly fewer construction companies than in October announced that they will increase their prices over the next three months.