After two years of Covid, recruitment difficulties, rising fuel prices, craft construction companies are facing a dizzying increase in the cost of raw materials. The 730 members of Capeb 24 are helpless. “The prices of certain materials are only guaranteed for ten days, sometimes even twenty-four hours! How can we do it when we need at least two or three days to draw up an estimate and at least two or three days to accept it. When will this untenable situation end? asks Frédéric Liogier again.
“We sail on sight”
While some customers understand the necessary reassessment of quotes to incorporate this inflation of raw materials, others refuse or postpone their projects. Entrepreneurs then draw on their margins. “By dint of cutting back, it will bring down a lot of companies”, warns the president of Capeb 24.
“Even if we worked well during the Covid, the cash flow is falling enormously”, confirms Lionel Rivet, the boss of Ecobat Elec and administrator of Capeb. “My company employs 20 people. I make 3.5 million in turnover but I don’t know if I continue to earn money, if I lose it or if I’m going to fall,” assures François Laubal, director of Sogebois Concept and also administrator of Capeb 24.
The situation experienced by small construction companies is paradoxical: they work tirelessly, without knowing where they are going and without even being sure of getting out of it. “I’ve never had so many requests, it’s phenomenal, but we have our heads in the bag, we’re sailing on sight,” confirms François Laubal.
Tax cuts
How to get out of this untenable situation? “For example, by introducing a 5.5% VAT on all restoration work, by capping fuel taxes with retroactive effect from January 1, by deferring the costs of companies that need it”, says Frédéric Liogier who wrote to the prefect of the Region with the other presidents of the Capeb of New Aquitaine. “We’ll get out of it by invoicing, not by subsidies, specifies François Laubal. Customers are told: ”Don’t let us down”. »
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