CLOSE TO 51,000 new entrants to the construction sector need to be recruited by the end of the decade to meet the government’s Housing for All and National Retrofit Plan targets.
The construction of 33,000 new homes per year up to 2030 is one of the Housing for All aims.
Meanwhile, the National Retrofit Plan aims to retrofit the equivalent of 500,000 homes to a B2 Building Energy Rating (BER) standard by 2030.
The new entrants required to meet these aims will be needed in managerial, professional, skilled, and semi-skilled occupations.
Over 30,000 of these new entrants are required for “craft skills”, which includes electricians, pipefitters, bricklayers, plumbers, carpenters, plasters and painters.
However, a new action plan which was published today, called ‘Careers in Construction’, warned that “providing a sufficient number of new entrants in the craft skills poses the most serious challenge”.
The report puts this down to the skill level required, alongside a “combination of the pandemic and low growth in new housing prior to 2018”.
The report points to a need for the construction industry to “recruit and retain a higher number of workers than is currently provided for through education, apprenticeship and current retention levels”.
However, it notes that a “narrow perceived image” of the construction industry is harming efforts to recruit new entrants, particularly young people and women.
This includes the perception that working within the industry is solely“ on-site” and that the sector “falls prey to cyclical economic crises”.
As part of the report, the government went through a series of focus groups with “key audiences” including students, teachers, parents, employers, as well as former and current workers in the sector.
A “consistent theme” among students, teachers and parents was a “limited understanding of the breadth of roles and opportunities within the sector”.
For example, students tended to view the industry through the lens of “on site” and visualised “tough physical outdoor work in harsh weather conditions”.
Students were also described as having “limited appreciation” of office-based roles within the industry.
Female students also viewed construction sites as male dominated places which are “less welcoming for women”.
One second-level female student commented: “I just think of loads of men working on a site, not really somewhere that I would ever think of working.”
Another said she was “not sure that they would have respect for women in an all-male environment”.
Females also had concerns about the changing, toilets and washing facilities that would be available for women on site.
Second-level females also reported that limited information was available in single-sex schools on construction apprenticeships.
Over the past 14 quarters, women have only been 10% of the construction workforce in three of those quarters.
Overall, only 18% of girls reported having a good understanding of the construction apprenticeship, compared with 42% for boys.
Of the 268 Transition year students who responded to tailored surveys for the report, only one male student considered the option to pursue an apprenticeship.
By his own admission, this male student viewed this as a “contingency option” in the event of failing to secure the points needed to attend third-level education.
The student in question also viewed pursuing an apprenticeship as a “less esteemed option amongst his peers and parents”.
Parents and teachers also exhibited “limited understanding of the sector”.
Parents were found to be worried about “financial uncertainty, career stagnation and physical burnout of construction careers”.
For example, one parent questioned the ability of block layers and plasterers to continue working into their 50s given the “physical, hard, demanding work”.
The report also noted that in some instances, “students are actively discouraged from pursuing roles in the sector”.
“I would see some parents who would very much be guiding their kids away from apprenticeships even though the kids would be interested,” said one teacher.
Some teachers also suggested that there was a “degree of snobbery” among parents towards the trades.
Meanwhile, a “reticence to recruit unemployed workers from the live register” was articulated by employers.
These employers questioned the work ethic of people who are unemployed and were hesitant to invest in recruiting and training people from the live register.
One employer remarked: “You would have to ask yourself if someone is unemployed when the economy is booming, do they really want to work and are they the type of person you want to invest your time training and if they are going to last?”
Staff retention was flagged as an issue and the report noted that long working hours and “unsustainable deadlines” encouraged people to leave the industry.
Employees also said that the under-pricing of public contracts in order to win a project appeared to be commonplace.
This puts an “unrealistic workload” on employees and a pressure to get more done for less
On the part of those who are unemployed, the requirement to give up their jobseeker’s allowance to engage in a training court was a significant barrier.
The report noted: “Given that many long-term unemployed workers have ongoing living costs, few appear willing to relinquish such financial support to engage in short term training and development.”
In response to the focus groups, a number of actions were agreed to help promote careers in the construction industry.
This includes plans to develop “flexible learning pathways in senior cycle education” with regards to traineeships and apprenticeships.
The Construction Industry Federation is also to continue providing staff training on gender bias and mentoring programmes for female employees.
Towards the end of this year, experts in the sectors will create resources that schools can use for engagement.
Next year, the Department of Further and Higher Education will deliver “multi-media resources, including a documentary, to inform students of the varied opportunities for men and woman and the changing working environment in the sector”.
Subject to funding, a national marketing campaign will also be launched next year for the construction sector to address the barriers highlighted in the report.
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