Yahoo Finance Firms more reliant on EU staff as British builders close in on retirement with few young replacements
A generation of British builders are getting closer to retirement, leaving the UK increasingly more reliant on EU labour.
Although 90pc of workers in the industry are British, workers from overseas – and particularly the EU – make up a growing proportion of the workforce, particularly at the younger end.
Almost half of British nationals in the industry are aged 45 or over.
By contrast 50pc of those from overseas are aged 35 or under.
This raises fears the UK may be left reliant on an ageing group of workers with few domestic replacements to build homes and infrastructure in the years after Brexit, if there is a sharp fall in immigration.
In London the pinch could be particularly sharp – the ONS found 28pc of construction workers in the capital come from elsewhere in the EU while 7pc are non-EU nationals. Just under two-thirds are British in London.
Manny Aparicio at property consultancy Naismiths said “it is crunch time for the UK construction industry”.
“The UK housing crisis will soon be facing a crisis of its own, in the form of recruitment,” he said.
"We have an ageing workforce of UK construction workers that is simply not being replenished at the required rate. Once a significant percentage of UK construction workers retire, and that day is fast approaching, the sector will struggle.”
It is part of a wider skills shortage which is leaving employers struggling to find the staff they need, at a time of very low unemployment.
Alongside companies in construction, health and social care employers are struggling to find workers, as are education providers, the Recruitment and Employment Confederation said.
Half of employers are finding it hard to get permanent staff while 68pc are concerned about the availability of temporary workers.
It spells trouble for growth as businesses’ confidence in the economic outlook has recovered and they want to expand – 20pc plan to increase the size of their workforce over the next year, 64pc expect to hold steady and 4pc plan to cut headcount.
Training and skills campaign group the 5% Club said boosting diversity in training schemes is a crucial way to improve skills and business performance across the economy.
Just 8.1pc of apprentices in science, technology, engineering and mathematics jobs are female, the business-run group said, while just 11.3pc of all apprenticeships for to ethnic minorities.
This means businesses risk missing out on pools of talented workers, and on the business benefits that diversity brings.
Companies should use "blind CVs" which strip out details such as names, gender and age in an effort to remove bias from recruiting.
They should also seek out candidates beyond their usual group, as well as training managers in unconscious bias, and by asking senior executives to mentor someone of a different age, ethnicity or gender, the 5% Club said.
