Shortage in skills still growing

by Paul Donovan The skills shortage in the engineering construction sector is likely to reach breaking point over the next 12 months unless the industry addresses the problem seriously.

David Oddling, director of business development at Brown and Root, has called on the industry to "grasp the nettle of skills shortages" and apply more resources to the problem.

"In the 1970s and 1980s thousands and thousands of people left shipbuilding, heavy engineering and mining and came into construction. Those people are now 25 years older and they have not been replaced," he said.

The skills shortage in engineering construction grows more severe as the workforce gets older and the industry fails to attract new recruits.

Ivor Williams of the European Construction Institute criticised the lethargic attitude being adopted by the industry. "I have watched year after year as a small upturn in work is followed by complaints about skills shortages," said Williams.

"There are training boards but they don't get strong leads from the industry. The boards are hard working but they are not getting the right steer from the industry itself," he added.

The Construction Industry Training Board is struggling to address the problem of attracting training and keeping people in construction but they too are issuing dire warnings of what is likely to happen if the problem is not addressed more seriously.

"There will need to be another 230,000 extra people employed in the industry by the year 2001 if demand is to be satisfied," according to a CITB spokesman. The industry will require 30,000 carpenters, 17,500 bricklayers and 24,000 managers in the next two years.