IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/loceco/v22y2007i2p123-137.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Barriers to Skills Development in a Local Construction Labour Market

Author

Listed:
  • Judith Watson

    (University of Brighton, UK)

  • Graham Sharp

    (University of Brighton, UK)

Abstract

The literature on the construction industry suggests that the structure of labour markets in that industry sets up barriers to skills development. It is often suggested that ‘employer engagement’, leading to increased ‘buy-in’ into skills development, and investment by employers is the way to overcome these barriers. We present an example from a local labour market in South East England, with reference to an intervention in training (‘Constructing Futures’) that has brought private and public sector actors together. This example shows that employer engagement on its own is not sufficient to overcome the barriers created by the labour market structure. We suggest some essential measures to allow more workers to enter the industry and gain skills and reduce the skill shortages endemic to the industry in South East England.

Suggested Citation

  • Judith Watson & Graham Sharp, 2007. "Barriers to Skills Development in a Local Construction Labour Market," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 22(2), pages 123-137, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:22:y:2007:i:2:p:123-137
    DOI: 10.1080/02690940701394205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/02690940701394205
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/02690940701394205?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Howard Gospel & Jim Foreman, 2006. "Inter‐Firm Training Co‐ordination in Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 44(2), pages 191-214, June.
    2. Graham Winch, 1998. "The growth of self-employment in British construction," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(5), pages 531-542.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Andrew Dainty & Stephen Ison & Geoffrey Briscoe, 2005. "The construction labour market skills crisis: the perspective of small-medium-sized firms," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(4), pages 387-398.
    2. Conen, Wieteke & Schippers, Johannes Jan & Schulze Buschoff, Karin, 2016. "Self-employed without personnel between freedom and insecurity," WSI Studies 05, The Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI), Hans Böckler Foundation.
    3. Colm McLaughlin, 2009. "The Productivity‐Enhancing Impacts of the Minimum Wage: Lessons from Denmark and New Zealand," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 47(2), pages 327-348, June.
    4. Lippert, Inge, 2006. "Niedriglohnstrategien im Hochlohnsektor: Öffnung des Arbeitsmarktes und Beschäftigung von MOE-Arbeitskräften in der Metall- und Elektroindustrie," Arbeitspapiere 129, Hans-Böckler-Stiftung, Düsseldorf.
    5. Phillip Toner, 2008. "Survival and Decline of the Apprenticeship System in the Australian and UK Construction Industries," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 46(3), pages 431-438, September.
    6. Colm McLaughlin, 2007. "The productivity enhancing Impacts of the Minimum Wage: Lessons from Denmark, New Zealand and Ireland," Working Papers wp342, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    7. Leemann, Regula Julia & Imdorf, Christian, 2015. "Cooperative VET in Training Networks: Analysing the Free-Rider Problem in a Sociology-of-Conventions Perspective," International Journal for Research in Vocational Education and Training (IJRVET), European Research Network in Vocational Education and Training (VETNET), European Educational Research Association, vol. 2(4), pages 284-307.
    8. Stephen Mustchin, 2014. "Union modernisation, coalitions and vulnerable work in the construction sector in Britain," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(2), pages 121-136, March.
    9. Felix Behling & Mark Harvey, 2015. "The evolution of false self-employment in the British construction industry: a neo-Polanyian account of labour market formation," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 29(6), pages 969-988, December.
    10. Jan Druker & Richard Croucher, 2000. "National collective bargaining and employment flexibility in the European building and civil engineering industries," Construction Management and Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(6), pages 699-709, December.
    11. Andrew R. J. Dainty & Stephen G. Ison & David S. Root, 2005. "Averting the Construction Skills Crisis: A Regional Approach," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 20(1), pages 79-89, February.
    12. Jeppe ZN Ajslev & Jeppe L Møller & Roger Persson & Lars L Andersen, 2017. "Trading health for money: agential struggles in the (re)configuration of subjectivity, the body and pain among construction workers," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 31(6), pages 887-903, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:loceco:v:22:y:2007:i:2:p:123-137. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/index.shtml .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.