Make every effort to solve the problem of employment in the industry - a survey of the current situation of employees in construction sites around the world

Walking into the construction site, most of the workers working under the scorching sun are no longer young faces. In July and August, how many of the construction graduates who walked out of the school ended up on the construction site? In this unbearable summer, the reporters went to Guangxi, Henan and Guangdong to learn about the current situation of labor at construction sites.

Age 'gap' for construction workers

In Nanning City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, on the edge of the Yong River, more than 20 high-rise buildings have been capped in the Junlinwan Project of the Railroad Royal Seal. Every day, nearly 400 workers work on site. This summer, no fresh graduates entered the front line of the construction site. At present, the youngest worker in the project is 26-year-old Liu Xiaoquan, who graduated from a college majoring in engineering cost three years ago.

It is understood that there are no more than 30 workers under the age of 30 in the entire project. "The main force on the construction site now is the group of people who came from the countryside to work in cities in the 1990s. Thirty years ago, they were about 20 years old. Now they are old, and the younger generation is unwilling to join, resulting in the lack of connection between the youth and the yellow, and the workers are disconnected." Huang Mingliang, chairman of Guangxi Huizhong Construction Labor Service Co., Ltd., told reporters.

Older workers take the lead, an increasingly common sight on construction sites across the country. In the Yifeng Square complex project in Xuchang City, Henan Province, half of the workers are over 50 years old. Statistics show that as a major labor exporting province in the country, Henan currently has more than 5 million construction workers, of which about 50% are over 50 years old. The phenomenon of "aging" is prominent.

In Guangdong, the reporter learned from the Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development that there are currently 3.017 million workers registered in the construction worker management service information system of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development in Guangdong, of which 31.7% are over 50 years old and 58.5% are over 40 years old.

According to industry insiders, the traditional construction industry is labor-intensive, and many types of work require high-altitude work, which requires higher physical fitness. A reasonable team of construction workers should be dominated by young and strong workers, preferably under the age of 40, and only a few older workers.

But at present, the "aging" phenomenon of construction workers has become very obvious. According to the "2021 Migrant Workers Monitoring and Investigation Report" by the National Bureau of Statistics, the total number of migrant workers nationwide in 2021 will be 292.51 million, of which 19.0% are migrant workers engaged in the construction industry. The average age of migrant workers was 41.7 years old, an increase of 0.3 years over the previous year; the proportion of migrant workers aged 40 and below decreased; the proportion of migrant workers over 50 years old continued to increase.

Over time, the older workers are gradually struggling. Xu Jianmin, a 49-year-old construction worker from Henan, has been working on the construction site since he was 19 years old, and has worked as a masonry, plasterer and concrete worker. He said that after the age of 45, he began to feel powerless, but he couldn't find anyone to take over, and the pressure of life was too high, so he could only grit his teeth and continue to work.

At the same time, the problem of "difficulty in recruiting" is also highlighted." Ten years ago, when the recruitment news was released, the workers needed for a project could be recruited in one day. Now with multiple online and offline channels, it takes ten days and a half months to recruit all the people, which is very laborious." Huang Mingliang said.

Cultivating a new type of industrial workforce

The data shows that the gross enrollment rate of higher education nationwide in 2021 will be 57.8%. That is to say, more than 40% of young people of the right age have entered the society, and these young people finally choose the construction industry very few. Among Liu Xiaoquan's classmates, including him, only two chose to work as front-line workers after graduation.

According to Li Haifeng, deputy manager of the Nanning Railway Yuxi Junlinwan Project Department, the salary of construction workers has been increasing in recent years. Young people who have just left school go to the construction site as apprentices, with a monthly salary of five or six thousand yuan. After one or two years of proficiency, it can be raised to 8,000 or 9,000 yuan. After becoming a "master", a monthly income of 10,000 yuan can be obtained. Compared with the older generation of workers, young people have a higher level of education and can get started faster.

Even so, there are not many young people willing to go to the front line. "Families with slightly better economic conditions are reluctant to come. Most of the families who come here are in poorer economic conditions." Li Haifeng said.

Fan Yunlong, a teacher at Zhuhai Polytechnic Vocational and Technical School, said: "The society's impression of construction sites is that the working environment is poor, unhealthy, without technical barriers, and limited room for advancement. Families with better economic conditions are reluctant to let their children suffer."

At the same time, various emerging occupations have emerged, and young people have more choices. Lin Xiuli, an employment instructor at Guangxi Construction Vocational and Technical College, admitted that with the general improvement of living standards, most young people no longer have economic worries. Although construction workers have higher incomes, the monotony and hard work are prohibitive. In contrast, work such as short video production and webcasting is more popular.

Does being a construction worker mean narrower development space?

actually not. In recent years, my country has been encouraging the cultivation of new types of industrial workers. Various labor skills competitions and craftsman competitions have demonstrated the unique skills of many front-line workers and shaped a new type of worker image. Many skilled talents have become industry pioneers by virtue of their craftsmanship, and their career development and living conditions have been greatly improved.

In 2020, 12 departments including the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development jointly issued the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Cultivation of Construction Industry Workers in the New Era". It is proposed to form an army of knowledge-based, skilled and innovative construction workers adhering to the spirit of model workers, labor and craftsmanship by 2035. Various support and incentive measures provide construction workers with a stage and space to display.

Technology empowers to improve construction efficiency

"In a few more years, now this group of workers has withdrawn from the stage, who will take over? Who will build the house in the future?" Guo Yibing, a project manager with 20 years of experience in construction site management, is worried about the future.

However, in Linzhou, Henan Province, which is known as the "hometown of construction" in the country and has more than 1,000 construction enterprises, Lv Xianchao, director of the city's construction industry administration bureau, believes that the "aging" of construction workers is not entirely a bad thing. "Construction jobs are becoming less and less attractive to young people, thereby promoting enterprises to carry out construction industrialization reforms and develop and use machines to replace labor."

He believes that with the invention of new technologies, machine operations will replace manual operations, and construction efficiency will be greatly improved. At the same time, labor must adapt to machines, master machines, use machines, and promote continuous innovation and progress of machines, so as to make construction workers younger, more specialized, and more advanced.

The trend of industry development also confirms Lv Xianchao's point of view

This summer, a group of construction robot industry technicians took up jobs in Nanning, Beihai and other cities in Guangxi. Luo Huiming, 31, is one of them. On the afternoon of July 26, in Room 1801, Building 11, Times City Project, Nanning City, after Luo Huiming gave instructions on a tablet computer, the indoor spraying robot moved slowly and sprayed latex paint on the ceiling.

In just 1.3 hours, the indoor robot completed the spraying of latex paint on the walls and ceilings of a house with a construction area of 115 square meters. In the past, this work required 2 workers to work 4 hours to complete.

According to Meng Duoyu, the project manager of the construction party, five construction robots are currently used in the project to assist in the operation. "Compared with manual labor, construction robots have higher construction quality and efficiency, which can liberate workers from high-intensity and dangerous positions, reduce labor intensity, reduce the occurrence of occupational diseases, and the construction environment looks taller and better'."

It is understood that in the past two years, many leading companies in the industry have successively explored the use of construction robots to replace workers for operations. Construction robots can be used in the whole life cycle of buildings such as concrete construction and finishing, brick laying and plastering, interior decoration and decoration, high-altitude spraying of exterior walls, and basement decoration.

At the same time, government and industry authorities are also taking action. This year, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development issued the "Notice on Collecting and Selecting Pilot Cities for Smart Construction", proposing a decision to collect and select some cities for pilot projects of intelligent construction. Guangdong Province took "promoting the coordinated development of intelligent construction and building industrialization" as an important measure, and included it in the "Guangdong Province's Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and the Outline of Vision 2035". And in the "Several Measures for Promoting the High-quality Development of the Construction Industry in Guangdong Province" and the "14th Five-Year Development Plan for the Construction Industry in Guangdong Province", it is proposed to strengthen the construction of application scenarios such as intelligent buildings and "robots to replace people", and promote the integration and demonstration applications of major products.

Many industry insiders interviewed said that with the injection of technological elements, the working environment of construction sites will be greatly improved. The industry is forced to reform, construction workers will gradually become a threshold and enviable profession in society, and the attraction to young people will increase.

At the same time, improving the treatment of workers and enhancing their professional pride can also effectively solve the problems of aging and labor difficulties. "The improvement of production and living conditions will help attract more young people to join the construction industry workers." The relevant person in charge of the Guangdong Provincial Department of Housing and Urban-Rural Development said.