Construction industry 'not training enough workers'

The British construction industry is suffering from a severe shortage of new workers, the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT) has said, with an unwillingness to train new starters being blamed for the problem.

UCATT has said that its apprenticeship scheme has just 7,000 members this year, despite the industry requiring more than 87,000 new employees each year.

While the union has said that the gaps are filled by migrant workers, it added that problems regarding so-called self-employed workers were also an issue.

"One of the reasons is because we have rampant bogus self-employment in the industry, companies don't employ anyone. Because everyone is officially self-employed, there's nobody to train anyone," said a UCATT spokesperson.

"We don't have a problem with a genuine self-employee. It's people who follow orders, have set hours, can't carry out work without materials or equipment supplied.

"If you fall into that category, you're not self-employed, you're an employee," he added.

The spokesperson also called on to the government to introduce contract compliance, but added that proposed measures that would reduce the length of apprenticeships would simply result in lower standards.

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