Chan, P W and McCabe, S (2010) Emerging disparities: Exploring the impacts of the financial crisis on the UK construction labour market. In: Egbu, C (ed.) Proceedings of 26th Annual ARCOM Conference, 6-8 September 2010, Leeds, UK.
Abstract
Economic downturns generally disrupt the employment landscape and lead to economic restructuring. The purpose of this article is to explore how the recent financial crisis has impacted on UK construction employment. The analysis reveals a number of emerging disparities in terms of age, gender, employment status, and employment conditions. Specifically, the disparities point to increasing marginalization of youths in recruitment into the sector, resilience of women in weathering unemployment, proliferation of non-traditional forms of employment relationship and decline of working conditions. Comparisons are made with a number of European countries to illustrate how political differences can contribute to distinctions in labour market trends. Thus, questions are raised on the adequacy of the UK government’s response to the financial crisis. Arguably, the perpetuation of neo-liberal policies serves only to further dismantle the traditional employment relationship, replaced by more flexible labour markets that in turn threaten long-term prospects for the construction industry.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper (Paper) |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | labour market; disparities; economic downturn; employment trends; recovery strategies |
| Index terms: | women, labour market, construction labour, recruitment, construction industry, unemployment, working conditions, disparity, recovery, employment, strategy |
| Subjects: | operations management, economic analysis, social justice, sociology, industry analysis, management, economics, employment law |
| Topics: | Business Strategy, Research Practice, Project Management, Legal Issues, Supply Chain Management, Ethics, Human Resources, Site Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 3 PCT |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here