Although the construction industry market remains cold, summer arrived in Finland with a bang. A few weeks after the snow inferno, heat records were broken. Many are probably hoping for a similar quick turnaround for the construction industry as well. That's how it has often been. When the market starts to recover, we will go delicately to the other end. The construction industry is not a market with constant demand and it brings with it many challenges, such as, for example, the constant resourcing of the workforce.
With the collapse in the amount of construction, a large number of skilled labor has left us for other sectors, and foreign labor has returned to their home country or moved to another country to work. The massive actions required by the green transition and climate change prevention fall in the same time window as the recovery of the construction industry, e.g. changes in energy production and use and reconstruction of Ukraine.
There will be both a quantitative and a qualitative shortage of skilled labor. Do foreign employees who have moved to other countries return to Finland or do they stay where they got a new job? What about those who moved to other fields? Cyclical fluctuations are normal in the construction industry, so does a possibly steadier economic cycle attract you to stay in a new career?
The quality requirements for competence will also become stricter in the future. With the green transition and energy efficiency requirements, building technical systems are becoming more complicated, and their construction and use require an even more comprehensive understanding and know-how from their creators. It is no longer enough that each type of weapon only focuses on its own doing, but the systems must be able to communicate with each other. On the other hand, mastering a single field will also require more in-depth knowledge in the future. The operation of a heat pump plant is significantly more complicated than a traditional oil boiler.
LVI-Tekniset Urakoitsijat has launched the activities of the LVI-Työelämäpartner network, which already includes thirty educational institutions. The educational institutions of the network are committed to certain quality criteria, the purpose of which is to ensure the realization of working life cooperation. In addition, the goal is to improve the quality of building engineering degrees and to develop operating models, e.g. for learning on the job. The experiences gained from the LVI-Työelämäppamppan are promising: this is a concrete way to ensure the availability of skilled labor in the industry in the future. As you know, the network is the only one of its kind. It is possible to scale the model to other fields as well.
Whether the construction cycle turns this year, next year or the year after that, we already have to think about where we can find enough skilled labor when the need arises again. In addition, we urgently need to think about what kind of skills we will need in the future? Professionals specializing in one thing or multi-talented people in a wide range of fields? Based on the results of the discussion, it would also be good to reform the contents of the degrees to meet the future demands of working life.
I would like to wish summer and warm weather to the construction industry as well as to the nose of the pier.
Mika Nikula
Chairman of the Board
LVI-Technical Contractors LVI-TU
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