Spring Is In The Air

Spring is in the Air

Here we are over a quarter of the way through a new year. Who has kept their new year’s resolutions? Are things looking up? Better or worse than expected?

With the government announcing it will pump billions into the construction arena for the next five years, this will enable a sense of optimism to return to our industry – won’t it? The construction industry is very important to the UK for more reasons than most realise. When the car industry collapsed a couple of years ago, it didn’t take long for the ‘anti-car’ government and councils’ to realise that it was an essential spine of British industry. 

It affected 1 in 8 jobs in the UK, so the government had to introduce the car scrappage scheme to help the industry sell vehicles, which in turn aided the suppliers, caterers, health services, insurance companies, banks etc etc. In fact it has now been realised that the car industry is bigger now than it ever has been. 

The UK is the second largest manufacturer of cars in Europe.

What has this got to do with the construction industry? Well, that is even bigger and affects 1 in 5 people in the UK. When house-builders build, councils can loan from banks and get income from the builders, which means people move into the new houses, and more jobs are created, new roads, facilities and infrastructure, and employers move into the area, and then the circle of influence grows and grows.

The government also announced that Britain’s economy will ONLY grow by 0.6%. That is good; look at Spain, Italy, Greece. 0.6% is growth. The economy is growing. Turn that 0.6 into pound notes and it’s an increase every month of £16bn turnover. How great is that for a small island in the middle of a world cash crisis? 

OK so we’re not the States or Germany, but then we’re not Japan or China who are in negative growth (to use an Americanism). We are the world financial capital, and it’s the financial powerhouses that are in trouble, so we’ve done well as a country so far.

Why is this relevant to this column? Well, there is still a major skills shortage in the UK, we have vacancies that we cannot fill. Our sister company We Are Recruitment is now recruiting teachers from Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland to fill much needed roles in schools in the UK. In those countries, teachers have taken pay cuts and reduced working conditions. The UK has not – and it has an increase in job roles.

However, the reason for the skills shortage in UK engineering is because the salaries and conditions offered for skilled engineers is below what other countries offer. Councils have signed up to supply companies which stifle mark-ups for agencies, apparently to get the best deals. However, many agencies are shunning these councils and their supply companies as the profit line is negative. 

These arrangements are also putting engineers off working for councils. It is also affecting private companies too. Very soon the UK will have to look at this, as generations are now shunning our industry, and this is bad for 1 in 5 people!

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