Tuesday, December 11, 2007

United Arab Emirates skilled construction jobs

If contractors are to meet new Green Building standards in the UAE, they will have to recruit greater numbers of skilled construction labour and be allowed longer deliver times for developments, a conference in the United Arab Emirates was told by a leading international formwork expert.

Geir Jensen, general manager of formwork specialists Doka Emirates told the conference that a lack of skilled labour could cause hold ups in meeting new sustainable building goals in the UAE, when regulations which stipulate that all buildings in the emirates must be constructed to international 'green' buildings standards come into force in January.

He stated that sub-contractors and contractors may struggle to meet the regulations as a result of construction skills shortages and tight deadlines set by clients. He said: "The current workforce can't be expected to do jobs fast-track as they're not skilled enough Until we have the skilled labour I feel we won't be able to do sustainable buildings." Jensen also pointed out that developers were setting impractical delivery dates for their projects.

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