Good news along with the increased apprenticeships.
The view on trades is slowly and finally changing.
Government screwed themselves over by giving too much focus on college degrees. During the recession there should have been state apprenticeships and the apprentices would have worked on state projects while serving their time and by the time the recession is over there would have been a big workforce of varying tradesmen. From plumbers, to plasters, to electricians, bricklayers, CAD technicians etc.
Trades aren’t as respected in Ireland compared to the rest of Europe. It makes me sad.
They weren’t advertised to us in school. They wanted everyone to go to college so it will look good in their books and papers.
So many young fellas burned badly last time it no wonder they are struggling to recruit people to go into trades and work on sites. It’s tough work and I know a fair few lads who needed new knees and hips at 50 from the Tiger era.
Also Pay is a big issue as is our weather and the alternative is to go to college, get an office job where you could be 3 or 4 days a week at home working away.
I remember when it went tits up last time, 2009 – 2013 was hell for any us who were working on sites, who couldn’t go to Australia. The government brought in compulsory courses for those on the dole. I was made a Microsoft Office course, and it got me a job, and luckily it worked out.
Could they do the same now for young fellas in areas of high unemployment. Make them do a site safety course to get their foot in the door, labouring on sites and who knows a bit of meaningful employment might even help with the anti social behaviour ?
Lots of comments saying that people don’t want to go in to construction jobs – but the evidence doesn’t really bear that out.
We have [about the same number of construction workers as we had in 2004](https://i.imgur.com/cSuojzb.png). In 2004 there were 70k home completions.
We have lots of construction workers, but they are not employed building houses. Given the office construction and hotel boom that continues that’s not surprising – and especially when you add to that the billions in government infrastructure spending that is occurring, from the NBP to National Retrofit. Both of those were the “largest infrastructure project in the history of the state” when announced, and the latter is an €8bn investment that draws workers directly away from building new housing.
Our move to a third level educated population has been too successful. The transformation has been quite incredible, even if it’s not obvious to current generations of how things used to be here.
I think initiatives like these are great but manual work and trades are going to continue to find it hard to attract younger people while there are so many opportunities out there in the job market.
While this is good it was needed years ago, they have been complaining about the lack of construction workers for a long time. Not sure why it took them so long to action it even accounting for slow process and covid.
They use the OPW for their own personal construction jobs for their homes, it will be interesting to see what their real plan is here.
I have to assume this will be awarding a British company with a regulatory capture.
Its like the way they stopped using police for policing and then were left with violence on the streets to use to their advantage to escalate arms.
Thank God. Only ten years into a housing crisis. 5 years since it was declared a national emergency. We have a plan people!
Construction jobs outside of trades are on the lower end of the payscale, with us hitting basically as low unemployment as really is possible those sorts of jobs wouldn’t be desirable. They can make an action plan all they want but unless they do like a co-op style of revenue share on the builds to increase salaries across the board people won’t touch that shit.
10 comments
Good news along with the increased apprenticeships.
The view on trades is slowly and finally changing.
Government screwed themselves over by giving too much focus on college degrees. During the recession there should have been state apprenticeships and the apprentices would have worked on state projects while serving their time and by the time the recession is over there would have been a big workforce of varying tradesmen. From plumbers, to plasters, to electricians, bricklayers, CAD technicians etc.
Trades aren’t as respected in Ireland compared to the rest of Europe. It makes me sad.
They weren’t advertised to us in school. They wanted everyone to go to college so it will look good in their books and papers.
So many young fellas burned badly last time it no wonder they are struggling to recruit people to go into trades and work on sites. It’s tough work and I know a fair few lads who needed new knees and hips at 50 from the Tiger era.
Also Pay is a big issue as is our weather and the alternative is to go to college, get an office job where you could be 3 or 4 days a week at home working away.
I remember when it went tits up last time, 2009 – 2013 was hell for any us who were working on sites, who couldn’t go to Australia. The government brought in compulsory courses for those on the dole. I was made a Microsoft Office course, and it got me a job, and luckily it worked out.
Could they do the same now for young fellas in areas of high unemployment. Make them do a site safety course to get their foot in the door, labouring on sites and who knows a bit of meaningful employment might even help with the anti social behaviour ?
Lots of comments saying that people don’t want to go in to construction jobs – but the evidence doesn’t really bear that out.
We have [about the same number of construction workers as we had in 2004](https://i.imgur.com/cSuojzb.png). In 2004 there were 70k home completions.
We have lots of construction workers, but they are not employed building houses. Given the office construction and hotel boom that continues that’s not surprising – and especially when you add to that the billions in government infrastructure spending that is occurring, from the NBP to National Retrofit. Both of those were the “largest infrastructure project in the history of the state” when announced, and the latter is an €8bn investment that draws workers directly away from building new housing.
Our move to a third level educated population has been too successful. The transformation has been quite incredible, even if it’s not obvious to current generations of how things used to be here.
I think initiatives like these are great but manual work and trades are going to continue to find it hard to attract younger people while there are so many opportunities out there in the job market.
While this is good it was needed years ago, they have been complaining about the lack of construction workers for a long time. Not sure why it took them so long to action it even accounting for slow process and covid.
They use the OPW for their own personal construction jobs for their homes, it will be interesting to see what their real plan is here.
I have to assume this will be awarding a British company with a regulatory capture.
Its like the way they stopped using police for policing and then were left with violence on the streets to use to their advantage to escalate arms.
Thank God. Only ten years into a housing crisis. 5 years since it was declared a national emergency. We have a plan people!
Construction jobs outside of trades are on the lower end of the payscale, with us hitting basically as low unemployment as really is possible those sorts of jobs wouldn’t be desirable. They can make an action plan all they want but unless they do like a co-op style of revenue share on the builds to increase salaries across the board people won’t touch that shit.