Construction professionals will be financially worse off again this year with employers set to offer below inflation wage rises at best, or maintain salary caps for a third successive year.
The bleak news for salaries comes as the outlook for the industry continues to deteriorate amid rising unemployment, public spending cuts, and the prolonged crisis in the Eurozone.
An executive at one multinational firm told CM: “Our plan is to award pay increases this year [2012] because we want to reward staff that have gone without a pay rise for the last two years as we’ve battled the downturn. But the market is still in a bad place, the hoped for recovery hasn’t materialised, so the increase will be some way below the rate of inflation, probably between 1% and 2%.”
With the high rate of UK inflation — which fell slightly to 4.8% in November — this is a substantial pay cut for most construction workers.
Rob Searle, commercial director at construction recruitment group CareerStructure.com, said: “It’s highly unlikely that companies are going to increase salaries at the current rate of inflation, particularly at a time when most sub-sectors of the industry are struggling to grow.”
Meanwhile, a report by CITB-ConstructionSkills, published in December, revealed that more than half of employers believe the next 12 months will provide no business opportunities, while one in 10 fear their business won’t survive the continuing downturn.
Careerstructure.com’s annual survey of sector salaries for 2011 revealed bid managers and structural engineers suffered the greatest drop in salaries last year, with their pay packets falling 13.3% and 10.2% respectively.
The report adds that the average construction worker was £1,164 worse off in real terms last year compared with 2010. Moreover, the report said those currently seeking work can expect their salaries to fall by as much as 5% when moving to a new company.
