In recent years, as labor subcontracting prices have risen rapidly and labor supply has become increasingly tight, the “migrant worker shortage” has intensified. The demographic dividend and market conditions of the construction industry are changing, and the difficulty of recruiting workers has become increasingly prominent. At the same time, malicious wage arrears and wage protests in the construction industry have emerged one after another, seriously affecting and even hindering the healthy development of the industry.

Who Took Our Frontline Workers?

“The labor market is rising strongly, and blue-collar wages in construction far exceed those of white-collar employees.” “Migrant workers in construction have seen wages triple in 10 years, yet 220 yuan a day still fails to attract young people.” In recent years, such remarks have been heard constantly. The difficulty of recruiting workers has drawn increasing attention and has also triggered instability in labor employment, high prices with low quality, malicious wage protests and other behaviors, with a harmful impact.

At present, the labor recruitment difficulties faced by construction enterprises mainly have three causes. First is insufficient supply. Today, not only the construction industry but many traditional industries are experiencing labor shortages. In addition, the country's pro-agriculture policies and the expansion of university enrollment have made it increasingly difficult for the construction industry to get a share. Second, the characteristics of the construction industry itself are also an important cause of the labor shortage. Being away from home all year round, high work intensity, and high risk, combined with growing social prejudice against the construction industry—the belief that construction workers do hard labor and earn money with their blood and sweat—have resulted in poor identity recognition for construction workers and intensified this labor contradiction. Finally, in recent years, accidents have occurred frequently in the construction industry. Some non-compliant enterprises and individual labor contractors have become bad apples, and together with extensive media coverage, many people avoid the construction industry at all costs.

The insufficient labor population in the construction industry is already a reality, and the “aging” of frontline workers is equally worrying. Data show that Hai'an County, Jiangsu Province, has about 190,000 construction employees, among whom workers aged 40 to 55 account for the majority, while young people under 30 account for less than 8%, and the new generation of migrant workers is severely lacking.

The reason is that, with the acceleration of urbanization and industrialization, young people's employment options have continued to expand, and the employment outlook of the new generation of young labor has changed greatly. Compared with the dirty, tiring and hard construction industry, they would rather choose jobs with relatively lower pay, closer to home and more colorful lives.

Entering the Site: A New Look at the Employment Environment

When construction workers are mentioned, many people's first reaction is a group of people “wearing safety helmets, with dusty and loose work clothes, and dark, rough skin revealing hardship and fatigue.” So what are the real working environment and living conditions of frontline workers like?

Take the Jiangyin Hailan Fortune Center project of Suzhong Construction Group as an example. At the construction site, the author saw workers in the company's uniform skillfully processing and tying rebar in high-standard processing sheds. In other corners of the site, workers were also carrying out construction in an orderly manner. The entire construction site was like a modern workshop, with standardized and unified workers with clear division of labor producing and assembling various components of the building on an assembly line.

The project department is equally meticulous in safety management. In addition to complete safety protection facilities, according to the project leader, cameras are installed at every point on the site to control the safety production of the entire project in an all-round way. At the same time, dedicated personnel conduct regular inspections to ensure the life, health and safety of frontline workers.

Labor protection is safe and reliable, and living support is equally meticulous. In the living area, the author saw comfortable and tidy staff dormitories. Although they are prefabricated temporary buildings, they are fully equipped with bathrooms, washrooms and air conditioning. The site has also built cultural and sports activity rooms and libraries for workers. At the Zhong'ao City project department in Chongqing, many workers come from ethnic minorities. In order to accommodate different ethnic dietary differences, the project department, on the basis of running the staff canteen well, ingeniously set up a self-cooking area for employees, allowing them to cook for themselves within specified hours, which won unanimous praise from workers. With living conditions transformed and labor management increasingly humane, workers' enthusiasm for work has also greatly increased.

In addition, the company also attaches great importance to safety education for frontline workers. Whenever work resumes or new employees enter the site, the company holds three-level safety education. Many project departments also use spare time to train workers, inviting experts or experienced workers to provide targeted training. Workers gradually grow into technical talents with solid professional skills and a high level of professionalism. The “mobile safety school” on the construction frontline pioneered by Suzhong Construction was highly recognized by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Du Qiguang, deputy general manager of Suzhong Construction, introduced: “In the new era, construction enterprises no longer simply think about ‘recruiting people’ but try every means to ‘retain people.’ The company has made great efforts in this regard, standardizing labor management, strengthening labor protection, and promoting humane living facilities. Improvements in all aspects are transforming the ‘migrant workers’ who once ‘ventured into the world with a trowel’ into industrial workers. The reserve of frontline construction workers has played a very positive role in coping with the ‘labor shortage.’”

Breaking Fixed Thinking: Where Does the Future Lie?

Rome was not built in a day, and the construction industry's “labor shortage” cannot be solved overnight either. The government should introduce relevant policies and measures to encourage and support the growth of construction technicians and promote the healthy and sustainable development of the construction industry.

“To forge iron, one must be strong oneself.” Enterprises should also look for causes within themselves and make greater efforts, such as standardizing employment management, effectively safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of migrant workers, and eliminating the occurrence of wage arrears to migrant workers; enterprises should increase investment and continuously improve the production and living conditions of migrant workers so that they can work and live with dignity; they should strengthen pre-job training and vocational skills training for migrant workers, do a good job in safety protection construction, and safeguard the lives of construction personnel. If these problems are not solved, no matter how high the wages are, the “labor shortage” problem cannot be solved.

Especially under the favorable momentum of new urbanization, how to correctly study and strive to solve the problem of “difficulty in employing people and difficulty in being employed” is particularly important for ensuring the sustainable and healthy development of the construction industry. Construction enterprises should commit to transforming into modern industries, strengthen worker training, equip frontline personnel with knowledge and technology, turn the demographic dividend into a talent dividend, and build a frontline construction force with superb skills and first-class quality; improve labor management, enhance workers' sense of identity, retain frontline workers through strong safety guarantees, considerate living support and generous salaries, and transform into modern enterprises.

In short, solving the problems of “difficulty in recruiting” and the “labor shortage” is a systematic and complex comprehensive challenge that requires the collaboration of various national functional departments and a multi-pronged approach to guarantee the sound development of the industry through institutional mechanisms. At the same time, construction enterprises must act immediately, innovate human resource models, standardize labor management, and let the “iron-clad camp” retain the “soldiers in flowing water.”