Green covers blanket the buildings, cranes tear up the skylines - despite the plummeting economy, and Britain still seems to be in the midst of a commercial building boom. While other sectors are cutting back, the commercial building industry is not, with the problematic result of a sharp shortage in construction workers to fill the increasing demands of the companies.



The shortage of skilled construction workers is most noticeable when examining last year's figures. 13,000 building projects were launched in 2007, and approximately 87,600 labourers were required to support these projects. The expertise deficiency is therefore widespread, both in the trade and non-trade. The highest annual requirements of the general trade are the electrical trade and wood trade, and there is also a high demand for building specialists and brick layers. The biggest requirements among non-trades include business processing managers, construction managers, professional and technical staff, architects, and office-based IT-recruits.

This worrying dearth is primarily due to three reasons: 1) As a result of the building boom; 2) the dwindling numbers of East Europeans in the trade; 3) the misperceptions of recruiters about what construction work involves.

The first reason is quite self-evident and has already been discussed previously - the higher the project demands are, the more individuals need to be hired to do the jobs.

As the British trade has been largely dominated by highly-skilled Polish workers over the years, the impact of Poland's recent economic boom has driven many Poles back to their home country, which is a big loss for British construction companies.

The third reason why Britain is plagued by a labour shortage is because of the misconceptions that recruiters have about construction work. A lot of job hunters perceive the job as being limited to the construction site - while in fact; many positions are often office-based or managerial.

A variety of steps have been taken to bridge the recruitment gap in the building trade. One way this is achieved is through encouraging diversity in the work place. Instead of just hiring white males with degrees in mathematics, some companies are looking beyond traditional recruitment pools and encourage women and various ethnic groups to work in construction. The National Association of Women in Construction is one of the organisations that takes this approach and by doing so, is not only allowing for fresh ideas to be brought into the construction industry, but cultivates diversity in the workplace.

A way of increasing the number of graduates in the construction trade is by getting children interested at a young age, as the Sustainable Employment Legacy Forum and Inspire Scholarships programs have done. They not only organise trips for children to visit construction sites, but they also offer student funds, apprenticeships, and training courses to people in the poorer outskirts of London, providing younger generations with great initiatives to join the industry.

Another important initiative to acquire more employees is to change the ways in which the building industry is viewed. By getting communities to realize that construction is about so much more than just hard hats and light-reflecting mesh jackets, more recruits might start believing construction work is a suitable career.