Manpower

Excluding the professionals in private practice but including those professionals employed by public authorities and contractors, the total manpower in the construction industry in 1981 (shown in Table 11.1) was estimated at between 1.5 and 1.8 million persons and, including unemployed construction workers, at between 1.8 and 2.1 million. This is remarkably little different from the 1973 levels of 2.0 to 2.2 million in the peak employment and output year of 1973 (see Table 11.2). The reason for the upper and lower figures is the uncertainty about the number of self-employed. The lower figures are based on DoE estimates and the higher ones on Inland Revenue statistics of assessments of individuals in construction.1 It will be seen that the number of self-employed may now be nearly equal to the number of operatives directly employed by contractors, although some of the self-employed on the Inland Revenue basis may be Administrative Professional Technical and Clerical (APTC) — for example self-employed draughtsmen working in contractors design offices, but these according to the CITB, would be only 1300.2 The OPCS survey on mobility3 gives some further clues about the numbers of self-employed. They were concerned with manual workers employed in the construction industry and in their sample they found 20 per cent of the hireable workforce were men working as self-employed manual operatives in construction.