Difficulties sourcing labour – following a drop in the number of EU-born workers in the UK – are likely to push up rates by at least 10 per cent, recruiters have warned.
A decline in the number of EU-born workers in the UK construction industry, combined with a surge in demand, has created a squeeze on labour. Contractors are reportedly finding it harder to recruit workers at existing rates and are facing cost increases.
Darin Burrows, director of recruitment agency City Site, told
Construction News there had been a growing squeeze on unskilled workers. “What we’ve seen is labour rates already creeping up, particularly labourers, because we’re finding it harder to find eastern European workers.” Burrows added that, in the past, around 80 per cent of the labourers on his books had been from eastern Europe. Dry-lining, another part of the sector with a large eastern European workforce, is also in short supply, he said