The construction industry has long been the scene of a battle to poach talent.
The construction industry has been facing a labor shortage for quite some time.
Not only major construction companies and construction consulting firms, but also local governments and independent administrative agencies are making a concerted effort to recruit and retain construction engineers and other professionals.
It's a never-ending cycle of one-upmanship—one person outmaneuvers another, only to be outmaneuvered in turn...
The labor shortage in the construction industry is nothing new. For over 10 years now, people have been saying that “the construction industry is facing a labor shortage.”
Do you really want to hire someone?
Although people have been saying for over 10 years that the construction industry is “short on workers,” I can’t help but wonder if the industry has truly been addressing this labor shortage head-on.
It reminded me of something a site manager at a certain mid-sized general contractor had said before.
At the time, I was working for a construction consulting firm, and we had been commissioned by a certain mid-sized general contractor to provide design support for a tunnel construction site.
That general contractor is a very well-known company in the construction industry, and one day, the site manager there told me, “Why don’t you come take a look at the site sometime?” So, along with the president and some colleagues, I headed to the site. When we arrived at the site office in the evening, we were immediately shown into the manager’s office, where he gave us a briefing on the site.
At that time, the director said, “We’re having a hard time because there are so few young people. We’re making a company-wide effort to recruit, but the results haven’t been very promising.” He added, “We’re focusing on technical high schools and visiting each one in the prefecture that offers civil engineering programs to promote our company.”
When my boss asked, “Since your company is well-known and has a strong reputation, won’t you be swamped with applicants?” the director replied, “No, no, that’s not the case at all. Students with college or technical college degrees are snapped up by major general contractors, large consulting firms, and government agencies. That’s why we’re focusing our efforts on technical high schools. “Technical high school graduates aren’t to be overlooked, you know. They make perfectly capable employees,” he said.
Since I was a graduate of the civil engineering department at a local industrial high school in the same prefecture where the project was taking place, the office manager asked me, “Do you know anyone? If so, please introduce them to me.” Even though I wondered if he was really serious about wanting to hire someone, I just gave a wry smile and replied, “I’ll see what I can do,” and that was the end of the conversation.
In the end, the construction industry relies too much on others
I’ve heard stories like this at my previous company, too.
Although that company was well-known enough to be called a “mid-sized general contractor,” it is said that one year, the number of new civil engineering graduates it hired was in the single digits.
It wasn’t that they had set aside only a few positions; they had actually set a target of hiring about 30 people, but the effort was a complete failure. Of course, the entire company had focused its efforts on the recruitment drive, and they reportedly conducted vigorous outreach activities, such as sending alumni to universities and holding information sessions.
However, from an outsider’s perspective, I wondered if this company’s HR department was really taking its work seriously. While it’s all well and good to visit universities and have students meet with alumni, just like the branch manager at the mid-sized general contractor mentioned earlier, I didn’t sense any “enthusiasm” for recruitment.
This is something I notice on the ground as well. While people say, “We don’t have enough staff,” they might try reaching out to recruitment agencies or staffing firms—saying, “Let’s ask a recruitment agency” or “Let’s ask a staffing agency”—but ultimately, they end up doing nothing about it.
They pay recruitment agencies or job sites, and if they can’t hire anyone, they just blame the other party. In other words, they may seem like they’re looking for people, but they’re not really trying to find anyone.
Seeing that, I became disillusioned with both the company and its people. Given the current labor shortage, it seems to me that they’re treating the issue as if it were someone else’s problem and simply shirking their responsibilities.
If you’re serious about hiring people, there are surely still plenty of steps you can take—such as overhauling your public relations and human resources structures, reviewing your work environment and work arrangements, and improving compensation and benefits.
It seems that, after all, the sense of crisis regarding the labor shortage in the construction industry is still only that significant.
