Construction Insolvency
Construction Insolvency (21281) measures how many construction companies enter external administration, or have a controller appointed, for the first time in each quarter, standardised against the node’s recent history. It is one of two components of Business Insolvency (21280), with Insolvency Outside Construction (21282), and carries half of that node’s weight. Business Insolvency in turn carries a weighting of 0.10 in the Economic Factors (APN Aggregate Macro-Volatility Index™) (21200).
The same quarterly count is one of the inputs to Construction Costs & Supply Chain (21260), where it is read as one sign of pressure in the building supply chain alongside producer prices and dwelling approvals. Construction Insolvency records failures that have already happened; it does not forecast them.
ASIC changed how it records a company’s industry in 2021. Until the end of April 2021 industry was recorded at the broadest level only, and a large share of companies fell into a general Other Services category; from mid-2021 far more are assigned to a specific industry. Construction’s share of all companies entering external administration rose from about one in five to more than one in four across the change, while the share recorded under Other Services fell from more than a third to about one in eight. Counts before the September quarter 2021 are therefore not comparable with later counts, and the baseline uses the 18 quarters from September 2021 to December 2025 only. That is shorter than the platform’s standard baseline, so the reading carries more uncertainty than a longer one would.
Primary metric: Node Z-Score (Z21281)
Metric typology: single-series Z-score of a quarterly count of companies. The count is a level, not a rate: no count of companies by industry is published on the same basis, so it also moves with the number of companies operating.
| Input | Source | Frequency | Coverage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Construction companies entering external administration or having a controller appointed for the first time | ASIC Insolvency Statistics, Series 1 (from July 2021) and Series 1A (July 2013 to June 2021) | Monthly, summed to quarters | September quarter 2013 to June quarter 2026 |
Tier-1 statutory regulator source. ASIC publishes its current series from July 2021 and a historical series for July 2013 to July 2022; the two agree within three companies a month over the thirteen months in which both were published. Monthly counts are summed to calendar quarters, and only complete quarters are used. Figures for the most recent months are provisional and are updated as late lodgements arrive. ASIC counts individual companies, not corporate groups, so a group of related companies entering administration together is counted company by company. No commercial data provider dependency exists within this node.
The chart shows the node’s reading for every quarter from September 2013, each measured against the same September 2021 to December 2025 baseline.
The solid gold line is the node’s reading in each quarter on the current industry coding, September 2021 to June 2026. The lighter dashed gold line, September 2013 to June 2021, is the same count before the change in industry coding, measured against the same baseline; it is shown for context and is not comparable with the later readings. The grey dashed line marks 0σ, the baseline average. On the current coding the reading was lowest at −1.7887σ in the September quarter 2021 and highest at +1.1826σ in the June quarter 2025. The June quarter 2026 reading is +1.0300σ.
At +1.0300σ (Q2 2026), construction companies are entering external administration at a rate about one standard deviation above the average of the September 2021 to December 2025 baseline: 902 companies in the June quarter 2026, against a baseline average of 659. Position. 84.2, ranked against 20 quarters on the current industry coding; 16 of the other 19 quarters since September 2021 read below the current quarter.
The count has read above its baseline average in every quarter from March 2024, after sitting well below it through 2021 and early 2022. The March quarter 2026 reading, +0.5044σ, was the lowest since March 2024, and the June quarter returned to the range of 2024 and 2025.
The other component of Business Insolvency (21280).
- The sole input is sourced from a Tier-1 statutory regulator (ASIC insolvency statistics)
- The Z-score of +1.0300σ (Q2 2026) is derived directly from the certified input against its baseline, not manually entered or estimated
- The baseline holds 18 quarters, September 2021 to December 2025, because of a change in how ASIC records industry in 2021; this shorter baseline is disclosed
- The position is ranked only against quarters recorded on the current industry coding
- No commercial data provider dependency exists within this node
