Construction industry report highlights negative perceptions of insecurity (by parents) and hard labour

4 comments

1. That headline gave me gallstones.

2. >they perceive it to be an insecure profession and one involving physically punishing work, according to a new study.

   Insecure is one thing but there’s no getting away from the fact that it does involve physically punishing work. That’s just the reality of it, like many trades.

   It’s hard for those careers to be a more desirable option than ones with less physical labour, better conditions and often better pay. I can’t blame a lot of young people wanting to do something different.

   Then again, arguably we have too many younger people wanting housing but not involved in building housing. So ultimately it’s a problem.

3. Hard labour .? Like nazi era germany? Or like a prision camp? 🤣

4. Look: If you want people to go into construction, you need a [Job Guarantee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_guarantee) – that’s the only way to remove the cyclical nature of that industry (but that’s far from the best reason to implement such a program).

   It’s like a permanent New Deal (like 1930’s US) jobs program, which anyone can join (both unemployed _and_ presently employed if they want, but not forced) – which pays for itself by boosting the economy (especially counter-cyclically during recessions: there can be a massive boost in e.g. public infrastructure projects during recessions).

   The style with which a Job Guarantee can be initiated, geared towards the housing crisis – can involve _both_ training and employment in building houses (and in producing materials that are in shortage) – with Job Guarantee workers getting first dibs for purchasing housing – and _state financing_ (mortgages) for the housing, where the Job Guarantee itself backstops the mortgage, by _guaranteeing permanent employment_ for the worker, and their ability to pay off the mortgage (which doesn’t preclude returning to private sector employment either).

   So it’s an entire self-financing program that trains workers, builds houses to solve the housing crisis, and provides permanent job security to _everyone_ (even refugees/immigrants: it can completely integrate them into Irish society, building their own homes) – guaranteeing the security of both public _and private_ finances tied to the program – so it’s the most obvious thing ever that should be done to resolve the crisis, yet the primary arguments you encounter against it are ones that are already answered ^^ above – or which oppose this on an ideological level.

   The world has successfully produced enough houses for people throughout the past, economies are persistently _more productive than they ever have been before in all of history_ – so if we’re not producing enough houses, it’s _by design_ it’s not just an innocent/natural fault of the economy – it’s deliberate and done that way because it’s incredibly profitable to manipulate markets to constrain supply (and in property more than almost any other market).