Skills Shortages
in the South African
Construction Industry
By Thami Nkosi
Project Manager – Construct Capital
www.constructcapital.co.za
Skills shortages are not
unique to the South African
construction industry but
rather generic to the global
construction industry at large.
These shortages range from professionals
to skilled and semi-skilled individuals.
There are a number of factors which
contribute towards the diminishing levels
of skill in the construction industry. The
supply of young construction professionals
has been seeing a reduction attributed
to, inter alia, the industry’s poor public
image and perceived low incomes (partly
influenced by the industry’s languishing
profit margins).
Skilled resources appear to be leaving
the industry without the existence of a
structured process geared towards transferring
those skills. Here is an illustration
of this point:
‘General what? ...’, that was the
response I naively gave during my days
as a young graduate coming into the
construction industry when I was asked
whether or not I knew what a General
Foreman was. To date I have encountered
a handful of Foremen whom I consider
to possess the skill and experience to
be worthy of that title. Why are these
valuable skills not being transferred?
Similarly, semi-skilled resources, as
mentioned earlier, suffer from the same
ills. The skillset which prevails in the
modern construction industry appears to
be of reduced quality. What do I mean?
I illustrate this with another encounter
I have had:
“A thousand bricks a day you say?
…” Yes. Believe it or not, these are the
types of assertions which I still hear when
considering potential bricklaying subcontractors
to undertake the renovation
and construction projects which we
deliver at Construct Capital. Productivity
rates of this nature, which used to be the
norm, have become unheard of in today’s
construction industry.
12
Cranes