Half of construction firms suffer from shortage of competent workforce

Outlook for next few months promises slight relief to Finnish industries

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The shortage of competent workforce has taken a turn for the worse in the building trade. According to the Confederation of Finnish Industries' trade cycle barometer, the imbalance of manpower resources worsened significantly during the first part of the year, and is now at its greatest since the late 1980s.
      No fewer than half of Finland's construction companies are encumbered by labour shortages. Companies are afraid of expanding their business and accepting new contracts as sufficient labour is anything but guaranteed.
      The industry suffers from lack of site foremen, traditional carpenters, and bricklayers, says the Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries Director-General Terho Salo.
     
Aging of the work force will further worsen the labour shortage situation, unless a radical change takes place. "Even without expansion, the industry suffers from an annual shortage of 4,000-5,000 workers", Salo says.
      Furthermore, the industry could use another 2,000 office employees as well. The construction field currently gives work to around 150,000 people in Finland.
      The labour shortage has already been tackled by hiring foreign workers, for example from Estonia. According to Salo, the portion of foreign labour is still minute, and it is not expected to grow significantly in the near future, at least not within the unionised building sites.
      On large construction sites in population centres of Southern Finland, the foreign workers currently constitute seven percent of the total workforce, Salo estimates.
      "In private housing business as well as in renovations to owner-occupied blocks of flats, on the other hand, the use of foreign work force is increasing."
     
Fortunately, this year there have been enough new applicants to fill every new student position in the industry's educational establishments. This is a definite improvement compared to the previous years when the construction work courses, in particular, suffered from shortage of students in the country's vocational institutes.
      "Still, it will take two to three years before these students will enter working life", Salo points out.
      The site foremen shortage has been tackled, for example, by further training workers, and by organising local recruitment and re-education opportunities.
     
Still, the near-future prospects for the construction industry as a whole look good, the EK trade cycle barometer predicts. Construction firms expect production and the number of personnel to continue growing steadily.
      For the Finnish industries, the future looks also slightly brighter than what was predicted in the spring.
      In the early summer, the order-book volumes grew in every field save the forest industry, which was troubled by labour disputes. Companies believe that commission volumes and sales prices will continue to increase in the coming months.
      Expectations in the service industry, in turn, have turned slightly darker. Financial and insurance institutions consider the present situation good, but the transportation industry - troubled by the high oil price and the forest industry labour dispute - rate their situation as weaker than normal.
      Companies believe production of services will sell steadily for the remainder of the year. Product sales prices dropped slightly earlier this summer in all other fields except the hotel and restaurant business, where prices were slightly higher.
     
The Confederation of Finnish Industries' July trade cycle barometer was answered by 1,059 companies. The barometer is produced quarterly.


Links:
  Confederation of Finnish Construction Industries (RT)
  Confederation of Finnish Industries (EK)

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