It would seem that the construction industry has gone quiet over the last two months and there have been work casualties as a result of the turndown. But there is still work to be done and  tradesmen have been able to eke out a living in these lean COVID-19 times.

The question is for how long can they continue to do so if the economic revival looks too slow. Neos Kosmos spoke to four men who are keeping on keeping on in their trades.

Vassili Thodori is a painter who has been able to keep going even though some of the work that he would normally do has been curtailed by the presence of families who would normally out of their homes at work and school while he could get on with the job inside.

“I have been doing external jobs,” he said. “The jobs that involved being inside the homes have now been cancelled with the owners working from home and their children being there too.”

“It is not like before. We are still working but at 50 per cent of what we did before the shutdowns,” he said.

“There used to be three of us working together, now it is two of us. March was very tough and there was not enough work for us all,” said the father of two young children..

“Hopefully things will go back to what they were. Even if it is 60 per cent of the work we had before. But I hope things will get better but it will slowly return to normal,” said Mr Thodori.

Electrician Nikolaos Floros said that despite fears of a slowdown when the measures to counter COVID-19 were introduced in April, his company has been able to continue.

“The situation has affected some companies in the construction industry I still have a job and I am getting some overtime as well he said. “My social life has definitely been affected.”

He said the halting of projects in the city’s universities had affected several companies but that his company was busy on other projects on the domestic and commercial front.

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For Paul Kalouptsis, a carpenter, he had remained busy over the last two months but he expressed uncertainty about the way ahead.

“I have been working but it has all been short projects and I will need something in the next two weeks, so I will have to go out and find more work.

“I had expected things to go really quiet but I have been one of the fortunate ones and I have not needed to seek government support. My wife has also been working so we are not in a dire a strait as others have been.

He said he had been involved in the first stage of a large construction project and was hoping that there would be work if the second project was to take off as planned in July.

Evan Galanis is a project manager. He lost his job when the building company he had worked for folded in the first week of April. He said there were problems that were evident before the COVID-19 shutdown and the pandemic could not be used as the sole reason for its demise.

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“Business has definitely slowed down and the government and bank concessions have made the situation a bit easier to bear and they are providing a buffer for our savings,” he said.

“There is work out there but not as much as six months ago and I am currently working on a  a six to eight week temporary role.

“Hopefully there will be a return to normality over the next three to six months because the last thing I need is to find work on a project that does not last long as that does not look good on a resume.

“So, one has to be patient and hope things will pick up while doing a few odd jobs before I find a good stable project to work on again.”