Multi-national construction teams

Abstract

While U.K. and European based process plant construction contractors still tend to make their initial assessment of the site manpower requirements for a project in terms of the performance of their own nationals, increasingly the actual construction team will be recruited on a multi-national basis. The general spread of categories of skills required for a project are suggested and the availability of local labour in areas of high construction activity is examined to show that it rarely can match the requirements without supplementation from outside the work area with essentially “expatriate” labour. Areas of recruitment are examined together with mention of some of the problems associated with the host country's entry, exit and work permit requirements. The overall management of the multi-national team on site is suggested as normally no more difficult than one recruited from one country. Although the economic justification may be marginal the authors conclude that the stability engendered on a large site by minimising the incidence of major labour disruption and possibly making the whole operation more acceptable to the host country, is increasingly sufficient reason for recruiting large construction teams on a multi-national basis.