Going Short!

First it was a shortage of skilled labour – nothing to do with Brexit or the pandemic, just an endemic factor of the construction industry. Then the workers we brought in from abroad to fill the gaps went back home and that was exacerbated by COVID-19 and lockdown. Now we are back on site, like the rest of the world and eager to crack on, we are short of building materials. What we can source is hampered when we try to bring it into the country by a shortage of shipping facilities in the docks and red tape.

If we can get it to the lumber yards, we have more problems, as we don’t have the lorry drivers to deliver building materials to local depots. The pandemic ramped up home deliveries of groceries and HGV drivers earned more and found it more congenial to be doing home deliveries rather than long trips and nights away on the Motorways – and there even instances of companies snatching drivers off refuse lorries on the streets! There is a churning of HGV drivers throughout the country, especially tankers (whose drivers need extra qualifications), and ambulance, taxi drivers and others stepping up to replace those who leave.

It is argued that they always have been underpaid and preferred to recruit cheaper drivers from abroad. They have all gone home. The industry, like the rest of the UK will have to increase salaries and prices will rise and the cost of construction will increase. We will pay for it in the end. But isn’t that what the economy is all about? Supply and demand is a longer term solution than panic followed by the inevitable calls for strikes and precipitate action.It probably comes down to Cost Value Reconciliation in the end –Learn how to maximise your profits on a project and you can reward your whole supply chain!

In the meantime, don’t forget the closing date for Hammers awards voting is November the 1st.

David Chadwick

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