Engineering Skills Shortage: A Bane to Better Performance in the Construction Industry

The current dynamic world of engineering and technology needs tactical reforms that will inculcate the responsibility of imparting skills and knowledge to up-coming professionals. Productivity is impacted by skills shortage, especially in the field of engineering and it becomes an economic issue for different countries. Over the last few years, there has been a noticeable decline in the technical apprenticeship practice and artisanal products and services in the construction industry. To understand how the construction industry is faring in the face of engineering skills shortage, this study is set to evaluate the effects of this shortage on the performance of the construction industry. The study was channelled to follow the descriptive method and a structured survey questionnaire was designed using information gathered from literature to collect data related to the aim of the study. 200 questionnaires were randomly distributed to construction professionals in Gauteng province of South Africa while 153 questionnaires were retrieved and all the retrieved questionnaires were deemed usable. The data collected were analysed using Mean Item Score (MIS) and Standard Deviation (SD). Findings from the study revealed that the major effects of engineering skills shortage in the construction industry are difficulties in recruiting, poor decision making due to not having the right skilled people, lack of quality relevance of training received, and low employment rate. It can be concluded that the unemployability of engineering graduates is on the increase which makes the industry lack an adequate number of skilled engineers to execute construction projects.