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How Can Construction Solve the Labor Shortage and Retain Talent?

Published Date
Author Alice Rosenberg

Transcription 

Interviewer: So let's talk a little bit about labor shortages and retaining talent in our industry. What are some things the industry could do to help solve the labor shortage in your region?

David Burczyk, Segment Manager, Field Technology, Trimble: Education is definitely a big one. We touched base on it a little bit earlier. You're seeing that Trimble's doing more of an extension into the universities and getting the generations that are coming out to the job sites already prepared so when they're coming out of school and they get on the job, they already have an idea of what is being used in practice. 

Paul Wallett, Regional Area Director, Trimble Middle East & India: I live in an area where it's highly expatriated. So we have a lot of skilled engineers but when the economy changes, they tend to leave and go back to their home country or they may travel to another region.

The big challenge it the local workforce. The locals are the ones that need to come up and replace those skilled engineers. And that's a crucial part to enabling that to happen.

Tanja Gut, Product Marketing Manager, Trimble MEP Europe: Diversity. I think there's a huge talent pool that the industry is not tapping into. And especially with all the transformations and the tools that we have today, I think it's a very interesting field to work in.

It also presents a lot of opportunities to people from any demographic and get more people from different backgrounds. One background specifically is women, as well, into the industry. 

Astrodimos Komninos, Customer Success Manager, Trimble SketchUp: I couldn't agree more. And I would say that for architecture and design, there is definitely not a labor shortage. We have a lot of architects.

I think the problem lies in diversity of skills. Software can do, for example, a lot in making architecture and building construction compelling to other industries, but also look out to other industries, bringing people in to construction.