Labor Shortage Hampers Swedish Construction Industry
May 26 2011 - 8:42AM
Dow Jones News
Swedish construction companies face a labor shortage as the
market picks up, the latest economic tendency survey from the
National Institute of Economic Research showed Thursday.
More than half of construction companies surveyed said finding
suitable manpower is the main obstacle to business. This has been a
recurrent theme in the institute's recent surveys, and as a
consequence of the shortage, some projects may be postponed, said
Lars Tullstedt, education and skills recruitment manager at the
Swedish Construction Federation.
"You cannot expect the industry to be ready for rapid expansion;
it will take some time," Tullstedt said, adding that a large part
of the problem is rooted in the 1990s and early 2000s, when not
enough people went into the construction business.
"The construction companies are able to recruit young, recently
graduated people, but they also need experienced people who can
manage projects," Tullstedt said.
The industry has also seen large numbers of employees retiring
in recent years, and there aren't enough experienced workers fill
the void.
The biggest concern right now is finding experienced project
managers, engineers and technicians for civil construction
projects, and the problem may be most pronounced for larger
companies, such as Peab AB (PEAB-B.SK), NCC AB (NCC-A.SK) and
Skanska AB (SKA-B.SK), which are active in civil construction and
need to keep their market shares despite retirements and staff
turnover.
Peab's chief financial officer, Jesper Goransson, recently told
Dow Jones Newswires in an interview that there has been competition
for human resources for some time now, but he didn't want to say
whether the company had been forced to refrain from bidding for
contracts because of capacity constraints.
"We don't see it that way. We are constantly looking to find
solutions to fulfil market demands," Goransson said, and his
counterpart at Skanska, Peter Wallin, said he doesn't see any
long-term capacity constraints. But Wallin also noted that it is
hard to find experienced project managers and said Skanska needed
to be able to attract people who would otherwise opt for other
industries.
"We don't see ourselves competing with NCC, Peab and JM, but
rather with companies such as Sandvik AB (SAND.SK), SSAB AB
(SSAB-A.SK) and L.M. Ericsson Telephone Co. (ERIC)," Wallin
said.
Tullstedt added that although labor shortage is still a major
issue in the industry, pressure may be easing as the large-scale
retirements seen in the last few years will decrease in the coming
years.
"From some regions, I hear people saying that they don't really
recognise this picture, and others say that it is starting to ease
somewhat," Tullstedt said.
-By Niclas Rolander, Dow Jones Newswires; +46-8-5451-3102;
niclas.rolander@dowjones.com
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