Construction Industry Must Heed Select Committee Warning

Construction union UCATT have welcomed the DTI select committee’s report into migrant workers and have urged the Construction industry to act on its findings.

The report titled Europe Moves East: the impact of the new EU member states on UK business found that the number of east European migrant workers is likely to decrease in future, due to wages improving in other countries and a lifting of employment restrictions in other EU countries.

As a consequence British industry should not rely on migrant labour to fill gaps in labour markets.

This is a particular problem in the construction industry where problems caused by a domestic skills shortage have been temporally resolved by recruiting migrant labour.

The current abundance of migrant construction workers has resulted in construction companies further reducing training opportunities and not recruiting apprentices.

This year 50,000 young people applied for construction apprentices but only 7,000 places could be found. A drop of over 22% on the number of available places from the previous year.

Alan Ritchie, general secretary of UCATT, said: “We have been warning the industry that migrant workers may only be a short–term solution. They have acted like ostriches to our warnings. Perhaps they will now listen as the select committee is conveying exactly the same message.”

Mr Ritchie, added: “If the number of apprenticeships does not dramatically increase then the construction industry will face real problems. Demand for labour will far outstrip supply and many construction projects will have to be cancelled.”

Aside from a domestic skills shortage, the construction industry is also suffering demographic problems. Many existing workers are within 10-15 years of retirement. The majority of construction workers are forced to retire before 65, due to ill health.