OpinYon NewsMag: #OpinYon #WebExclusives No workers but millions are jobless Believe it or not, there’s too much to be done – and not enough people to do it, in a country where millions are looking for work – in the Philippines’ booming construction sector. Property consultancy firm Colliers International Philippines recently made an astounding statement: the country’s construction sector actually lacks adequately-skilled workers, threatening to derail the real estate industry’s prospects of a boom year in 2017. “We believe private construction in 2016 could have been more robust if not for construction delays brought about by the lack of adequately-skilled workers. The intensified development of public infrastructure projects around the country will exacerbate this problem,” Colliers said in their statement. The lack of skilled workers has resulted in project delays, which meant that the projected supply of new office space in the country at the beginning of 2016 – 900,000 square meters – had been cut down by 30 percent. The situation was such that top general contractors have actually declined providing their company profiles to prospective clients due to a shortage of workers, the firm said. “With the projected surge in new developments, there will be further pressure on contractors to complete their projects in light of the already insufficient labor pool,” it added. Colliers has urged developers to take a more aggressive approach in partnering with the government’s skills development agency in providing training to available manpower from the countryside to address the growing threat of labor shortage in private construction.