What better time to consider construction?
- robball6
- 11 minutes ago
- 2 min read
A rather depressing headline in The Telegraph caught our eye this week: ‘Entry level jobs in freefall after launch of ChatGPT’. The story was based on information from job search site Adzuna which says that vacancies for graduate jobs, apprenticeships, internships and other junior jobs have fallen by 32% since ChapGPT was launched in 2022.
Although AI always makes for good headlines, the picture is a little more complicated than that. The impact of Covid lasted long after the pandemic passed and was followed by global unrest and disruption and a period of political uncertainty in the UK.
Job site Indeed, in reporting that graduate jobs currently account for the lowest share of job postings since 2018, observes that the fall in graduate roles is not necessarily due to AI. Firms are hanging onto workers longer and hence having fewer spaces to fill with graduates with postings for all UK jobs at 21% below pre-pandemic levels, a pattern that is repeated for France, Ireland, Germany, Italy and the US according to Indeed.
Given the gaping skills gaps at every level in construction, a wealth of young people on the hunt for jobs should be good news. With older people leaving the industry at a faster rate than new-starts are joining, and with the construction sector predicted to grow, the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) estimated last year that we would need 250,000 extra workers by 2028.
What better time for the Construction Skills Mission Board to launch? Headed up by Mace Group executive chairman Mark Reynolds, the board had its first meeting last week, on 26 June.
The aim of the board is to develop initiatives to help drive more recruitment in the industry, helping to direct Government funding effectively. The goal is to attract 100,000 new workers into construction by the end of this Parliament.
Junior jobs in construction have not been knocked out by AI in the same way that they have in some other sectors, such as legal or management consultancy. In fact, the combination of digital-native new starts who are comfortable with technology and experienced people who know the industry can be a winning one for productivity and efficiency on construction projects.
There is a big caveat to all these positive possibilities, however. The challenge for any employer in the sector is that we can’t recruit and train people based on forecasts and promises. We need a pipeline of work ahead of us.
The Government’s intention to invest more in our roads, its ambitious plans for housing, the publication of its 10-year Infrastructure Strategy earlier this month, and the infrastructure pipeline portal promised this month are steps in the right direction. But we need to see these plans coming to fruition so we can invest in growing and developing our workforces.
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