Post-earthquake construction in Turkey faces problem of labour shortage

Ankara: Tens of thousands of housing and infrastructure projects are being built in the region around the clock by the government in Ankara to meet the commitment of finishing them within a year following the devastating earthquakes on February 6 that struck Turkey and Syria, killing 59,259 people and damaging millions of buildings.

However, a severe manpower shortage in recent years has made it difficult for the government to achieve the objective set by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the issue is certain to get worse as the number of construction projects has drastically increased since the disaster, reports Xinhua news agency.

More than 13 million people living in 11 provinces were affected by the destructive earthquakes, and a large number of survivors were still homeless, according to the country's Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (AFAD).

"We will completely revive our earthquake cities by building 650,000 new houses. We are carrying out comprehensive urban transformation projects to prepare our whole country for earthquakes," Erdogan said.

The government aims to finish 319,000 of the houses by the end of May, Turkish Environment, Urbanization and Climate Change Minister Murat Kurum said last week.

But construction industry veterans pointed out that the workforce is not sufficient to meet the demand for so many projects.

As a structural problem in the sector, the labour shortage needs to be addressed as soon as possible by training new workers and improving working conditions.

In 2018, the number of construction workers in the country was nearly 2.3 million, but this number plummeted to nearly 1.5 million after the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Hasan Kirlangic, chairman of the Construction Workers' Union, told Xinhua.

He noted that construction workers have fled the sector for higher-paying or less physically demanding jobs in other industries or countries.

"Construction is a heavy industry and the labour force is dwindling due to relatively low wages. Besides, there is a shortage of new workers due to a lack of training," Kirlangic explained.

Meanwhile, the earthquakes further complicate the labour shortage of the sector, and the number of construction workers will not be enough for the target of building more than 600,000 houses, Kirlangic warned.

Kirlangic urged the government to take urgent measures if it wants to meet its commitment to building new homes for quake victims in one year.

"If wages, safety, healthcare, and housing conditions are improved, the previous boom in the labour force can be restored," he said.

Erdal Eren, president of the Turkish Contractors Association, told the Turkish parliamentary inquiry commission earlier this month that the country does not have the workforce to build permanent residences in the earthquake zone by the deadline set by the government.

The construction industry has difficulties in finding workers, and the number of vocational-technical schools should be increased, Eren told lawmakers.

With inputs from IANS