Abstract
THE White Paper on “Training for the Building Industry”, which has been issued almost simultaneously with the report of the Central Council for Works and Buildings, indicates that in this matter the Government is proposing to act in accordance with the main principles of the Memorandum on Training and Recruitment for the Building Industry, prepared for the Ministry of Works and Buildings by Mr. G. D. H. Cole on behalf of the Nuffield College Social Reconstruction Survey in 1941. Though there is no mention of a guaranteed week, it is clear that the Government is prepared to deal with the difficulty of 'wet time' and by some system of guaranteed employment eliminate the casual form of engagement which was formerly the most unsatisfactory characteristic of employment in the industry. On the second major requirement laid down by Mr. Cole, it may well be held that in undertaking to give the industry a guarantee of employment at a high level for a period of at least ten years, the Government has fixed its target too high. The White Paper suggests that a post-war reconstruction programme designed for ten to twelve years will require the labour force in the building industry to be built up over a period to about 1,250,000 men. That figure has already been seriously challenged both in relation to the building programme itself and relative to the competitive demands on available man-power in Great Britain in the post-war period.
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RELATION OF TECHNICAL EDUCATION TO THE BUILDING INDUSTRY. Nature 151, 427–430 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151427a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151427a0