Impacts of construction skilled labor shortage on the competitiveness of building sector in Rwanda Case of Kicukiro District

Abstract

"Improvements in project performance due to enhancements in labor skills have been highly demanding in the construction sector for a long time. It has been widely acknowledged that project performance is based on the labor’s skills during the project' execution stage, whose skills and abilities can affect the project's progress to a greater or lesser extent. The project aim was to examine the impacts of construction skilled labor shortage on the competitiveness of building sector in Rwanda. Case study: Kicukiro district. The specific objectives were to investigate the root causes of the shortage of skilled labor in construction industry particularly in in Rwanda, to identify the effects on the construction industry due to the shortage of skilled workers and to propose suitable strategies/mitigation methods to reduce impacts caused by skilled workers shortages in construction industry. The study concluded that the root causes of the shortage of skilled labour in construction industry particularly in Kicukiro district are skilled labours salary is less in construction sector, a transfer from another sector to construction sector requires more duration for become as a skilled labor, labors are not satisfactory about their salaries, lack of accommodation is the major reason for the shortage of skilled labor, work forced by the supervises for the skilled labor is high, non-permanent skilled labors receive skill training within your company, casual skilled labors are less likely to receive skilled training on your company, contractors do not provide training to labors, less amount of population in our area, younger generation unwilling to take part in construction firm, lack of food allowances is the major reason for the shortage of skilled labor, available training facilities are inadequate, delay in payment of skilled labors, retirement of the skill labors in your company and getting more projects in same area. Also, the researchers concluded that the effects on the construction industry due to the shortage of skilled workers are delay in project duration due to skill labor shortage, more rework due to lack of skill labors shortage, unable to do quality work, lack of skill labor shortage reason for higher accidents rates and cost overrun. Lastly, the researchers concluded that the strategies/mitigation methods to reduce impacts caused by skilled workers shortages in construction industry are boost Salaries, increase apprenticeship programs and incentivize training, investing in training and education programs and investing in technology and automation.