Understanding the Hiring Issues of the Craft Workers in the UAE’s Construction Labor Market: Project Managers Perspective

Mohammed Albattah,Amna Shibeika,Muhammad Sami Ur Rehman

doi:10.3390/buildings12010026

Abstract

The construction industry in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is faced with negative project performance, including low productivity, higher costs, delays in project completion, and defects during construction. One of the main reasons for these issues is the engagement of unskilled craft workers. Despite these labor issues, demand for construction projects in the UAE has been explosively increasing, in part due to Dubai winning the hosting of Expo 2020, which has given rise to an unprecedented demand for skilled construction craft workers. This study aimed to investigate the views and experiences of construction project managers regarding the reasons and challenges associated with the hiring of skilled craft workers in the construction labor market of the UAE. To fulfill the study purpose, the authors conducted structured open-ended interviews with UAE construction project managers. The results revealed several reasons for hiring craft workers despite a clear lack of qualifications and suggest some potential solutions.

Highlights

It is widely understood that construction infrastructure investment in transportation, energy, commercial and residential projects, among other sectors of the economy, can induce large, beneficial, economic multiplier and spillover effects [1]
All 15 project manager participants agreed that the majority of the craft workers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) came from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, while the rest came from Egypt, the Philippines, and other nations
The purpose of this study was to explore issues associated with hiring craft workers, the effect of specialized certificates on the hiring of craft workers, and some solutions to overcome the unskilled craft worker issue given by construction project managers

Summary

Introduction

It is widely understood that construction infrastructure investment in transportation, energy, commercial and residential projects, among other sectors of the economy, can induce large, beneficial, economic multiplier and spillover effects [1]. Given such large potentially powerful, positive investment leverage, the details of how the United Arab Emirates (UAE) construction industry projects are organized and executed are critical to the wellbeing of UAE citizens and international visitors [2]. The construction industry—the largest employment sector in the UAE—employs 20% of the approximately six-million-person workforce in the UAE or 1.2 million construction workers [5]. A person may be associated with an occupation through the main job currently held, a second job, a future job, or a job previously held [20]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion