Solving construction jobs crisis

The reces­sion might be over, but the con­struc­tion indus­try is still feel­ing the effects of what have been a tough few years for the sec­tor.

In short, it is fac­ing a recruit­ment cri­sis.

The fig­ures make stark read­ing. Since 2008, 390,000 work­ers have left the indus­try, reluc­tant­ly let go by com­pa­nies strug­gling to sur­vive. As pre­vi­ous reces­sions have shown, it’s dif­fi­cult to rehire employ­ees once they have left. Anoth­er 400,000 will reach retire­ment age in the next five years.

This actu­al and poten­tial deple­tion of the work­force is becom­ing a real issue now the indus­try is return­ing to growth. Con­struc­tion Indus­try Train­ing Board (CITB) fig­ures show that more than 180,000 new con­struc­tion jobs will be cre­at­ed in the next five years in the com­mer­cial, retail and res­i­den­tial sec­tors.

To help address staff loss­es and retire­ments, and fill the new jobs, an addi­tion­al 120,000 appren­tice­ships will be required by 2019 – about 25,000 new starts a year. This is a huge chal­lenge, one that requires action by the gov­ern­ment and every­one involved in the indus­try.

At CITB we are tack­ling the chal­lenge head on. In 2013, we helped 5,000 young peo­ple start a con­struc­tion appren­tice­ship in their local com­mu­ni­ty and are cur­rent­ly pro­vid­ing grants of up to £10,250 for any con­struc­tion employ­er look­ing to take on an appren­tice.

Our Shared Appren­tice­ship Schemes are being rolled out across the coun­try. These enable appren­tices to com­plete a full appren­tice­ship pro­gramme with a num­ber of dif­fer­ent employ­ers. This spreads the costs for busi­ness­es and makes it more like­ly that longer-term invest­ment in appren­tice­ships is main­tained.

To help address staff loss­es and retire­ments, and fill new jobs, an addi­tion­al 120,000 appren­tice­ships will be required by 2019 – about 25,000 new starts a year

We have helped the indus­try devel­op 30 nation­al skills acad­e­mies for con­struc­tion, which pro­vide hands-on train­ing, and have devel­oped pro­cure­ment guid­ance, Work­ing togeth­er to boost local con­struc­tion appren­tice­ships through pub­lic pro­cure­ment, for gov­ern­ment depart­ments, agen­cies and local author­i­ties.

But it’s not enough. More needs to be done.

The gov­ern­ment is try­ing to cre­ate a train­ing mar­ket where providers are respon­sive to what employ­ers need. This is wel­come, but it must make sure that any new mea­sures make it as sim­ple as pos­si­ble for com­pa­nies to invest in train­ing, espe­cial­ly small­er busi­ness­es that don’t have the capac­i­ty to invest in com­plex admin­is­tra­tion.

Appren­tice­ships are the lifeblood of the con­struc­tion indus­try, and the best way of grow­ing a tal­ent­ed and diverse work­force for the future. So get­ting the recruit­ment and train­ing mod­el right is vital for the 309,000 com­pa­nies – the major­i­ty of them small and medi­um-sized enter­pris­es (SMEs) – that make up the indus­try.

Act­ing on the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Richard Review of Appren­tice­ships, the gov­ern­ment has thrown down a gaunt­let to the indus­try, intro­duc­ing a fun­da­men­tal shift in the way appren­tice­ships are fund­ed and deliv­ered, to give employ­ers more con­trol and access to the qual­i­ty train­ing their busi­ness­es need.

To sup­port this work, CITB is work­ing with the indus­try to imple­ment the first trail­blaz­er of the government’s appren­tice­ship reforms and has set up a high-lev­el Appren­tice­ship Com­mis­sion to deliv­er an appren­tice­ship strat­e­gy for the con­struc­tion sec­tor by the end of the year.

Beyond recruit­ment, the government’s Indus­tri­al Strat­e­gy has set ambi­tious tar­gets for con­struc­tion to meet by 2025 – 33 per cent low­er cost, 50 per cent faster deliv­ery, 50 per cent low­er emis­sions and halv­ing the export trade gap.

Reduc­ing the trade gap is a laud­able aim, but con­struc­tion SMEs, which make up 95 per cent of the sec­tor, tell us that to increase exports they need sup­port to iden­ti­fy for­eign mar­kets and over­come export bar­ri­ers.

If they get this sup­port, SMEs will not only be able to reduce the trade deficit, but will also become resilient to the volatil­i­ty of eco­nom­ic cycles.

The gov­ern­ment is a major cus­tomer for the con­struc­tion indus­try, whether through big nation­al infra­struc­ture projects or local author­i­ty schemes. While it has start­ed to pro­vide com­pa­nies with more cer­tain­ty on upcom­ing infra­struc­ture projects, the gov­ern­ment must now pro­vide more detail so busi­ness­es can plan the next four or five years ahead.

The indus­try has a key role to play in its own suc­cess, too.

Career advis­ers are out of touch with what’s hap­pen­ing in the sec­tor and are not pro­mot­ing careers. Recent research shows that more than 35 per cent of advis­ers think a career in con­struc­tion is unat­trac­tive, while 82 per cent of teach­ers don’t believe they have the appro­pri­ate knowl­edge to advise pupils on their career choic­es.

Con­struc­tion employ­ers need to vis­it schools and explain the ben­e­fits of a career in the sec­tor. They need to tell young­sters how it’s becom­ing a high­ly skilled, reward­ing pro­fes­sion that, in many cas­es, it is extreme­ly well paid and excit­ing – the build­ing of the Olympic Park and the use of cut­ting-edge build­ing infor­ma­tion mod­el­ling are evi­dence of that.

The indus­try also plays an impor­tant role in tack­ling cli­mate change through design­ing and con­struct­ing more ener­gy-effi­cient build­ings, devel­op­ing smart mate­ri­als and build­ing zero-car­bon homes. Many young peo­ple are moti­vat­ed by cli­mate change and, if they choose to work in the con­struc­tion indus­try, can help address the chal­lenges it pos­es.

A high-per­form­ing, effi­cient con­struc­tion indus­try has a huge role to play in deliv­er­ing eco­nom­ic growth. It is in all our inter­ests to ensure that con­struc­tion, as one of the cor­ner­stones of the UK, deliv­er­ing £2.84 to the econ­o­my for each £1 invest­ed, is giv­en every oppor­tu­ni­ty to suc­ceed.

We must all work togeth­er to make this hap­pen.