Modelling the Supply and Demand for Construction and Building Services Skills in the Black Country

MODELLING THE SUPPLY AND DEMAND FOR CONSTRUCTION AND BUILDING SERVICES SKILLS IN THE BLACK COUNTRY OBUKS AUGUSTINE EJOHWOMU B.Eng., M.Sc. A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy November 2007 This work or any part thereof has not previously been presented in any form to the University or to any other body whether for the purposes of assessment, publication or for any other purpose. Save for any express acknowledgments, references and/or bibliographies cited in the work, I confirm that the intellectual content of the work is the result of my own efforts and of no other person. The right of Obuks Augustine Ejohwomu to be identified as author of this work is asserted in accordance with ss.77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. At this date copyright is owned by the author. Signature……………………………………….. Date…………………………………………….. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I am profoundly grateful for the invaluable advice and supervision of my director of studies Professor Paul Olomolaiye, whose unreserved support and guidance have made this thesis a dream come true. I am also very grateful to Professor David Proverbs, my supervisor, for his immense encouragement throughout this research. My indebtedness also goes to Frances Pottier – Construction Statistician, Department of Trade and Industry. I am also grateful to the Chair and members of the Research Steering Group for their time and immense material contribution. To my sponsors, School of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Wolverhampton, Wolverhampton, I am indebted for your stable financial support. Finally, a trillion thanks to my beloved wife, Isimemen and children, ‘Kore and ‘Sanero for their unconditional love and perseverance during this research. To my parents, His Majesty and Queen, Chief Luke Erede Ejohwomu, Ovie of Abraka Kingdom, and parents’ in-law, Sir and Lady John Asuelimen, I am highly grateful for your prayers and unflinching moral support. ii To my dear brothers and sisters, may you all “never walk alone”; Obuks Ohohe, Dr. Anthony Egbu and Dr. & Mrs Alohan Omoregie, many thanks for being friends indeed. iii DEDICATION DEDICATED TO THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY iv ABSTRACT Evidence seems to suggest that with 14 years of unbroken economic growth, the UK’s construction and building services sector is experiencing severe skills crisis of between 40 – 50 per cent retention rate and declining numbers of entrant trainees. More importantly, the level of this severity varies with sub regional and regional peculiarities. To date, most studies on this area have focused on increasing the population of the existing pools of labour rather than harnessing existing ones. Adopting the concept of multiskilling, current techniques of evaluating skills crisis were critically reviewed. While there has been some empirically beneficial application of this concept in the US, it is a rarity in the literature to find previous works on multiskilling in UK’s construction and building services sector. Adopting an action research approach, a Project Steering Group of industry stakeholders served as a research ‘think tank’ for validating empirical results, and in line with the theory of construct validity, instruments of survey were designed and operationalized in a pilot and major surveys of supply and demand sides’ target groups. Employing the relative index ranking technique, the forecast implications of UK’s economic stability are ‘real’ and a demand led system is prescribed as a tentative ‘cushion’ for sustainable but immediate redress. A time series data for the period 1961 – 2004 is explored and systematised quantitative demand led models for evaluating construction output based on aggregated and disaggregated manpower v attributes are developed using principal component regression (PCR). Aggregating these models, it is deduced that multiskilling could help redress skills shortage in the long term. A new trade equilibrium framework and a multiskilled focused partnership in training programme are prescribed with response strategies and recommendations. TABLE OF CONTENT ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................... II DEDICATION ................................................... IV ABSTRACT ............................................................ V TABLE OF CONTENT .................................................... VI LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................... XI LIST OF TABLES ...................................... XII CHAPTER 1 ......................................................... 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................... 1 1.1. BACKGROUND ................................................................. 1 1.2. WHY THE HEIGHTENED DEMAND FOR SKILLS IN UK? ......................... 5 1.2.1. Key drivers of growth ........................................................ 7 1.3. JUSTIFICATION FOR THE BLACK COUNTRY SUB REGION ....................... 7 1.3.1. Peculiarities of the Black Country sub region . 10 1.4. AIM AND OBJECTIVES ............................................. 13 1.5. METHODOLOGY .......................................................... 14 1.6. RESEARCH DISSEMINATION .............................. 16 1.6.1 Contribution to knowledge ..................................................... 16 1.7. STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS ................................................................... 18 CHAPTER 2 ....................................................... 22 A REVIEW OF MANPOWER PLANNING ................................... 22 2.1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................ 22 2.2. WHO SHOULD DO MANPOWER PLANNING? ........................ 24 2.3. DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN MANPOWER PLANNING AND MODELLING . 25 2.4. A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR CONSIDERING MANPOWER PLANNING VARIABLES . 26 2.5. A SNAP SHOT OF UK EMPLOYMENT MODELS .......................................... 33 2.5.1. Gaps in the current CITB-Construction Skills employment model ........................................................................................ 34 2.6. SUMMARY ...................................................................................... 35 CHAPTER 3 ....................................................... 37 CONSTRUCTION SKILL CRISIS: A FAILURE OF MANPOWER PLANNING ....................................................... 37 3.1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................ 37 vi 3.2. UNDERSTANDING THE PHENOMENON OF CONSTRUCTION SKILLS CRISIS . 39 3.2.1. Soft and hard skills: which is more beneficial to the construction sector ...................................... 41 3.3. A GENERAL SUPPLY AND DEMAND RELATIONSHIP ................................. 45 3.3.1. Factors that influence a general supply and demand relationship ...................................................... 46 3.3.2. Demand for skills ................................... 49 3.3.3. Supply of skills .............................................. 49 3.4. SKILLS CRISIS: AN ANALYSIS OF RESPONSE STRATEGIES ............................... 50 3.5. SUMMARY ...................................................................................... 54 CHAPTER 4 ....................................................... 56 A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR OPTIMISING EXISTING POOLS OF LABOUR ............................... 56 4.1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................ 56 4.2. MANPOWER REQUIREMENTS APPROACH (MRA) .................................. 58 4.2.1. Manpower requirements approach (MRA): criticism . 60 4.2.2. Manpower requirements approach (MRA): counter criticism ................................................................... 60 4.3. NEW KEYNESIAN THEORY .................................................................... 61 4.3.1. New Keynesian theory: criticism ........... 66 4.3.2. New Keynesian theory: counter criticism ............. 66 4.4. MULTISKILLING: A WORKING DEFINITION ....................................... 66 4.5.1. Multiskilling: research trend ............. 70 4.6. MULTISKILLING: CRITICISM AND COUNTER CRITICISM ............... 71 4.7. UNDERSTANDING THE FUNCTIONAL CONCEPT OF MULTISKILLING ........... 71 4.7.1. Non construction specific multiskilling models . 71 4.8. CONSTRUCTION SPECIFIC MULTISKILLING MODELS ..................... 73 4.9. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: A CASE FOR MULTISKILLING ............................. 75 4.10. SUMMARY .................................................................................... 76 CHAPTER 5 ....................................................... 78 PROCEDURE FOR GATHERING AND EVALUATING MANPOWER PLANNING DATA ................................. 78 5.1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................ 78 5.2. RESEARCH APPROACH ....................................................................... 78 5.3. PROJECT STEERING GROUP (PSG) .................................................... 79 5.4. RESEARCH QUESTIONS ......................................................................... 80 5.5. TARGET GROUP ................................................ 81 5.6. QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN ......................................... 82 5.6.1. Supply side questionnaire ......................................... 83 5.7. SAMPLE SELECTION ....................................................... 86 5.7.1. Constructors (demand side) .......................................

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