The 2012 Olympics and the bespoke buildings and resources required for them will mean a need for more skilled construction workers - about 182,000 of them according to the Construction Skills Network.
It is good to see this sort of statement from the industry, although all sorts of other projects at both local and national level will also drive needs like this. I have been involved in trying to forecast the extra numbers needed for a variety of construction projects in the Coventry and Warwickshire sub-region as well as for the major regeneration of Hastings. Organisations in the South East have had similar headaches over projects such as Terminal 5 and the Thames Gateway.
What makes this one a bit different? The world's eyes are on us for the 2012 Olympics - can we do what we said we would do in our bid? Elements of the media are already talking down the Olympics, in much the same way as they talked down the Millennium Dome after a few editors were inconvenienced when it opened. It is right or trendy or clever to start saying the whole thing will be a fiasco now, before we have got to the opening ceremony? That shows very little faith in our construction industry, the people who will take part in the opening ceremony and the business growth that should come from the Games, assuming it isn't sabotaged by the Whittering Classes (Chattering seems far too kind a terminology).
So, why not help the Olympic dream by encouraging young people to learn to be skilled craftspeople, with abilities that will ensure they are employable beyond 2012? If you are mobile and flexible and skilled, there will always be jobs, as our need for major projects to be undertaken never seems to end.
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