The UCATT construction union has announced a new training partnership with a Motherwell-based window making company, Walker Profiles, and heralded it as a ‘unique’ partnership, which ensures that the company’s workforce is fully skilled and able to adapt to economic changes.
The worrying background to the announcement is that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors has predicted worsening skills shortages that will threaten 27,000 building projects per annum within five years as companies turn down new business opportunities due to a dearth of skilled workers. And Freedom of Information requests to the Department of Business from UCATT showed that in 2013-2014, just 8,030 apprentices completed construction apprentices, when the industry needs nearly 45,000 new entrants every year.
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