The construction industry has certainly felt the pinch since the recession hit and there have been rumours that it is still struggling to recover. While other industries – including the financial sector – appear to be well on the road to recovery, the construction industry seems to be stuck out in the cold somewhat. Is it simply a lack of money that's holding it back or is the number of workers with specialist skills the key issue?

Skills

It is not as simple as just walking into a job in the construction industry, even if the positions are available. There is a degree of specialism involved to become a builder, plumber, project manager or any other role in the sector. Many people spend time doing apprenticeships or other training schemes to get the knowledge to do these sorts of jobs and there are often specialist skills that can be done on top of them.

Of course, it's worth bearing in mind that the jobs may not be available either. While you could have the correct training, if the competition to get a job is high, you will need to have something extra special to ensure you get a job over the rest of the applicants. Sometimes that can involve being multi-skilled or trained in a niche skill, in which case your own skillset won't be quite enough to nab the jobs. If a project manager has a vacancy for a builder and one of the applicants can also do leadwork, he is more likely to be hired due to having the specialist, additional skill.

Money issues

The other issue with the construction industry is that there is a problem with money. The crash of the property market meant that people were not buying houses and there was a downfall in the numbers of new houses being built, hitting the construction industry hard. As the property market begins to recover, the money may have started to come back into the sector but it is, naturally, a slow process.

With the big companies reluctant to pour money into an industry that still seems to be rather unstable, it has an immediate impact on the construction industry as a whole. The lack of money available for both new and existing projects means recovery will take a lot longer than it could otherwise take.

Combination

It's worth bearing in mind that a combination of both money and specialist skills is likely to be the real reason why the construction industry is stalling. While people are reluctant to invest, it means the jobs are not as readily available. Because of this, only the most multi-skilled people are able to get jobs, leaving the less specialist ones out in the cold.

If more money was being put into the sector, there would be the opportunity to start more projects, creating more jobs. As a consequence, the workers who had a slightly smaller skillset would be able to get work and learn new, niche skills. While they are out of work, it will be a lot harder to improve or start to learn new techniques and skills, pushing them further down the list of skilled individuals. However, once they are in employment, they can work harder and get more practice in a variety of different things. Ultimately, the industry needs to have more money put into it, as well as more multi-skilled individuals prepared to work in the construction sector.