Solutions for Maintaining Productivity in a Shrinking Workforce

9 pages•Published: December 11, 2023

Abstract

Construction companies work in a highly competitive market and often the smallest difference in how they approach project cost and productivity can determine their success. Also some of these companies struggles to take advantage of efficiencies in productivity when the gains cannot be easily observed. Within academia, there is an ongoing trend toward research that focuses on productivity and innovation that tackles some of the well know issues plaguing the industry. More recently, the labor supply worldwide is struggling to keep pace with the demand for construction services. In this research, four potential solutions addressing the labor shortage were identified in the current literature on robotics, off-site construction, wage re-evaluation, and vocational education. The study gathered electronic survey data from industry professionals concerning these potential solutions and discerned that off-site construction, wage re-evaluation, and vocational education seemed to be favorable options, while robotics were perceived as not ready yet. The remainder of the paper analyzes these results and provides some additional context to the responses from the various open-ended questions that were also collected during the study.

Keyphrases: Construction workforce, labor efficiency, labor productivity, labor shortage, Sustainable Labor Practices

In: Tom Leathem, Wesley Collins and Anthony J. Perrenoud (editors). Proceedings of 59th Annual Associated Schools of Construction International Conference, vol 4, pages 435--443

Links:	https://easychair.org/publications/paper/3CQB
	https://doi.org/10.29007/kvcl