RICS - General - Eastern European Labour

Date: 05 Apr 2005

An influx of labour from Eastern Europe is changing the face of the UK construction industry, comfortably bridging the skills gap brought about by sustained growth in the sector says an RICS report (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors), published last week.

Nine years of continuous growth would usually spell acute shortages of labour but the skills gap has fallen to its lowest level in two years. Only 38% of chartered surveyors are reporting difficulties in recruiting trades people, compared to a recent high of 45% in the third quarter of 2003.

A major reason for this is the arrival of more migrant labour from counties like Poland and Czech Republic, which has been made much easier since EU enlargement last May.

With the seemingly terminal decline of domestic vocational training and apprenticeships, this trend looks set to continue. And the survey shows a bullish industry. 35% of quantity surveyors expect employment demand to rise over the next three months and over half believe it will rise over the next twelve.

The construction industry continues to show growth well above average with 18% more chartered quantity surveyors reporting increases in workloads than falls.

Growth is being driven mainly by the commercial property sector due to demand from business and investors, while increased interest rates have taken some of the steam out of private house building.

Jill Craig, Head of RICS Policy, Europe, said:

'Now it is much easier for migrant EU workers to make their way across borders for jobs. The process was more involved before enlargement but now workers can leave for the UK on a whim. If average British incomes are around five times or more that of your home county and unemployment in Poland, for example, is over 18%, the maths is not hard to do.'

'At the labour level the system is working well but this liberal market ideology has yet to penetrate professional skills. There are still many barriers for UK construction and property professionals wishing to practise outside the UK and RICS is working hard to ensure this becomes more of a two way street.'

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