Skills shortages don't exist says training body

Countering concern over a widespread industry skills shortages, training body ConstructionSkills has said that no such shortage exists.

Speaking to the House of Commons select committee, deputy chairman Peter Rogerson said the industry was hitting his organisation's target of 87,600 skilled recruits a year. "There are pinch points but no overall lack. Generally, the recruitment target is being met. And it's being met in various ways.

"New people are coming into the industry, people inside the industry are raising their skill levels and crafts are bringing in recruits who learned their skills in other industries," Construction News (CN) quoted him as saying.

Rogerson said about 27,000 people are coming out of occupational colleges and universities and more are recruited from other areas already trained up like the armed forces.

In a response to Rogerson printed in CN, UCATT general secretary Alan Ritchie called the assertion that there is no problem ostrich like. He claims that 50,000 young people have been applying for apprenticeships in recent years, but in 2005 and 2006 ConstructionSkills only found places for 9,500. He said this year things have gotten worse, with just 7,000 places found.

If Ritchie is correct then he will be pleased to read Building magazine's news that a new taskforce has been set up to double the number of construction apprenticeships to 14,000 before 2012.

Made up of contractors, unions and trade bodies, the Cross-Industry Task Force on Apprenticeship Numbers has been created in the wake of statistics published in September, which showed that the number of apprenticeships offered by construction firms had dropped 25% since last year.

Speaking at the group's first meeting, its chairman Geoff Lister, president of the Federation of Master Builders, said that only 4% of the industry's 185,000 employees employ a ConstructionSkills apprentice, reported Building.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced that the Olympic site will become a National Skills Academy for construction. "The academy will have 1,000 job placements for people enrolled on local further education courses in construction. There will be training placements for local people and more than 500 apprenticeship places," he commented.