The construction industry in Africa has always been on a steady growth becoming a key employment creating sector for both skilled and non skilled personnel across the continent.
However, in most instances, when mega construction projects are launched, few Africans find their way to the jobs. International contractors often come with their own construction staff to work on projects in Africa.
For example, in KenyaChina Road and Bridge Corporation was forced to bring over 5000 workers into the country to help in the construction of the new standard gauge high speed railway. This is a clear indicator that the continent still lacks both skilled and non skilled labor to carry out various construction projects ongoing.
The crisis hitting the construction industry in Africa seems to be spiraling out of control as the current 70% of contractors available in Africa are struggling to fill roles for skilled staff so that they can complete their projects on time.
According to Kenya Railways Corporation Managing Director Atanas Maina the skilled workers that were recently brought to help in the construction of the railway that will ran from Kenya to Rwanda were brought literally to deliver high quality work.
Many Chinese firms have in many time defended their moves to bring workers from China to Africa saying they won’t carry any project with the current lack of skilled labor continues and African governments have nothing to defend because that’s the reality.
What is worrying the construction industry in Africa the most is half baked graduate who leave college with little to no idea of the current trends in the construction industry in Africa.
According to ManpowerGroup’s tenth annual Talent Shortage Survey Skilled trades and engineers remain the most difficult positions for companies to fill and getting the skilled person it becomes difficult to maintain them because of their high demand from various firms across the continent.
