The soft landing of the Austrian economy was abruptly ended by the deep recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the policy restrictions to contain it. Despite this external shock, the general conditions for the Austrian construction industry are not all pessimistic. Even after peaking in 2018, the industry produced growth rates well above 2 percent before the COVID-19 pandemic, with a large backlog of orders for 2020. Although the construction industry will be in recession in 2020, the output drop is less pronounced than in other sectors. Moreover, currently demand has suffered only to a lower extent, which means that the recovery can begin as early as the second half of 2020.