Agapiou, A; Price, A D F and McCaffer, R (1995) Planning future construction skill requirements: Understanding labour resource issues. Construction Management and Economics, 13(2), pp. 149-161. ISSN 01446193
Abstract
Construction is a labour-intensive industry, which places heavy reliance upon the skills of its workforce. These skills need updating continually as many of the trades involved in the industry become increasingly specialized. During the 1980s, there was a rapid rise in construction activity within the UK, followed by a sudden but short-lived boom accompanied by skill shortages. The construction industry is now experiencing a deeper and longer lasting recession than originally predicted, resulting in valuable employees in all sections of the industry being lost - a high proportion of whom will not return to the construction industry. The construction industry is predicted to grow in the period after the recession by an average of 3% per annum until the year 2001. With this growth the industry is expected to experience considerable skill shortages in both traditional and new skill areas. Construction is in a period of rapid cultural change accompanied by the introduction of new technologies and new ways of organizing construction activities. Powerful national and multinational clients will continue to influence the choice of these technologies through their demands for faster construction times. The construction industry will continue to face increased competition in search of eligible recruits to train accordingly. Employment within the construction industry will continue to move away from large and medium sized firms to small firms and working proprietors. In the 1980s, self-employment and the use of specialist labour-only subcontractors increased as training levels declined. This trend will hamper the industry’s ability to train people for future skill needs. This paper aims to assist interested parties in the construction industry understand and realize the importance of labour resource issues and the need for long-term planning of labour resource requirements, so allowing them to train and retrain people to address the predicted skill shortages.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | labour resources; planning; skills; training |
| Index terms: | construction industry, construction time, labour resource, recession, new technology, employment, construction activity, competition, medium-sized firm, self-employment, cultural change, subcontractor, skill shortage, face |
| Subjects: | management, sociology, project controls, business economics, market analysis, industry analysis, practitioner, psychology, economic analysis, construction operations, innovation and technology management |
| Topics: | Site Management, Organizational Design, Time Control, Human Resources, Roles and Professions, Business Strategy, Engineering Principles, Research Practice |
| 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