Construction industry report highlights negative perceptions of insecurity and hard labour

Parents are putting their children off careers in construction because they perceive it to be an insecure profession and one involving physically punishing work, according to a new study.

Those perceptions are reinforced by the last downturn between 2008 and 2013 when thousands of tradespeople lost their jobs in the last recession..

The State needs at least an additional 50,000 construction workers between now and 2030 if it is to meet ambitious targets for house building, the National Development Plan and retrofitting.

Currently there is a shortage of almost 4,500 skilled building workers in the sector. Some 170,000 people are now working in the industry, which is 20,000 more than pre-Covid levels.

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A Department of Further and Higher Education plan to boost the numbers entering construction has concluded that the industry suffers from perceptions that it is boom and bust and that the industry is solely on-site.

One construction employer surveyed said the industry was “toxic” after the crash of 2008 and “schools and parents avoided promoting the industry. No one was there to encourage the next generation to get involved and we are paying for that now.”

A survey by the department of parents and children found a marked difference between the two generations. Some 76 per cent of parents believe construction is a financially unstable career due to economic downturns, but only 33 per cent of students felt the same.

The department survey said many parents were not familiar with advances in the sector where much more work is done off-site and technological advances mean workers can continue to operate in the sector without having to do heavy manual labour.

It also said there was a “structural problem” facing the entry of women into what is traditionally a male-dominated profession. Few girls are afforded the opportunity to take construction-related subjects in schools, the report says.

The report was launched by the Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris at an event in Coláiste Cois Life in Lucan, where he unveiled a new mobile training unit that will travel around the country promoting accessibility to construction-related and retrofitting courses.

The mobile nearly-zero-emission-building unit will visit schools and construction sites.

Mr Harris criticised the “national obsession” in Ireland with the “points race”. It put “far too much pressure on young people” and gave the impression that it was the only way to progress into a profession.

He said the Careers in Construction action plan shows there are many career opportunities within the sector.

“Careers in construction are so varied now, involving everything from off-site manufacturing, planning and design to all of the on-site roles. There really is something for everyone and I would urge people to take fresh look at these opportunities,” he said.

Construction Industry Federation director of training Dermot Carey said he was pleased that the report included plan for a nationwide marketing campaign to encourage more young people into the industry.

“We have been quite successful in doing that, but we need to do it in an organised and a joined-up manner,” he said. “This report sets out 20 actions in total to achieve that to try and promote careers and career paths in construction design and management.”

Mr Carey said the State was one of the chief employers of construction workers and it must be involved in encouraging people to enter the industry and there would be plenty of work in the future through different initiatives.

“We need a campaign to promote all of those career paths for young people to make those decisions,” he said.

Engineers Ireland director general Damien Owens said the industry suffered from a perception that it was in a “wet field with digging and all of that. It is far from that. It is a much more technologically advanced industry than people give it credit for.”