| dc.description.abstract | In traditional labor-intensive industries, the gap between labor demand and supply is widening, as fewer students at their vocational choice decide to enter into such job vacancies. The purpose of this study is to envision a career planning strategy, aiming at providing such students of vocational track an acceptable career in traditional industries.
In the construction industry in particular, the deficiency of labor supply has become the main cause for schedule delays. Among the trades which lack labor, the formwork specialty suffers most, as this trade not only requires intensive input of labor, but it interfaces with many other trades which form the critical path in scheduling, and it demands meticulous workmanship in carpentry. As a result, the formwork trade sustains a long term deficit of skilled worker, and any meaningful revival of this trade will be to minimize the quantity as well as the quality of workers required to complete a project.
This study takes a qualitative approach in contemplating a career-planning strategy for formwork workers. This strategy begins with enticing students from vocational schools to join a career plan, which leads a student to become a “blue-collar” worker, then progressing to the status of an engineer, and finally playing the role of an owner of a small to medium business in the same trade. As the knowledge of working at the site in essential to the formwork trade, it is imperative for any competent owner of formwork business to start his/her career from being a lay worker at the job site.
This study first devises a set of questionnaire, for collecting views of vocational school students. More than three hundred questionnaires were sent to sample students in order to form the base of opinion. The questionnaire data were then analyzed statistically by SPSS. Finally a career planning strategy was devised based on the correlations found in the SPSS analysis. The proposed strategy can be used in other trades similar to formwork construction, in which there is a shortage of skilled worker, and the source of workers are to obtain from vocational schools.
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