ENGINEERING LABOUR MARKET IN CONSTRUCTION IN UKRAINE AND ABROAD

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to analyse the engineering labour market on the example of the profession of design engineer in modern conditions of the construction market in Ukraine and abroad. It is also necessary to study the formation of the integrated view of the structure, state and dynamics of the labour market in design enterprises; qualification requirements for engineers; compliance of the vocational education system with these requirements. Design is a type of labour activity in construction as a branch of professional activity. The article contains statistical indicators of wages that characterize the profession of design engineer, and innovative activities of design enterprises. The indicator of the level of innovative development of design enterprises is the quality of products (projects). One of the main characteristics of design is the price of the product. It includes the Customer’s assessment of all other design properties. Pricing issues have been and continue to be one of the guiding problems of the country’s construction industry, including design and the salaries of design engineers. Methodology. The design market in Ukraine has a situation that reflects the overall state of the construction industry. The development of this type of business and its participants is differently influenced by many factors. Project market participants in Ukraine can be classified: by the form of ownership – state departmental institutions and commercial structures; by the volume of work – design enterprises and design institutes that act as general designers, who mainly perform all stages of the project. Architectural workshops, mainly specializing in the stages of “sketch project” and “project”; design departments at the construction and assembly organizations performing stages “working design”, “working documentation”, separate sections of projects or only detailing for production. There were about 70 design enterprises and about 200 architectural workshops in Kyiv in 2016, according to the Association of Design Enterprises. The potential of Ukraine as a “technical” state, that is able to solve complex problems and generate complex solutions and products with high added value, is due to the potential of the educational field of technical direction. Accordingly, in 2016 in Ukraine, the relative number of graduates of technical specialties was 2 times more than in the UK or Poland, namely, in European countries, thousands of people: Ukraine – 130; France – 105; Germany – 93; Turkey – 75; Great Britain – 71; Poland – 66; Spain – 56; Italy – 48; Romania – 39. In 2015-2016, training in the fields of construction specialties in Ukraine was carried out by 49 higher education institutions. Today, one of the shortcomings of education is the lack of modern curricula; technical fields are getting excessively humanitarian and detachment from practice, in particular, the application of European standards. Some Western academic subjects are not taught in Ukrainian universities at all, which reduces the competitiveness of graduates. Certification of responsible executors of design works in construction in 2012 was a significant step towards the liberalization of the market of design services. The responsibility of engineers was personified and strengthened, but at the same time their object and financial possibilities were increased. As of December 2015, more than 22,000 design engineers have been certified in Ukraine. It can be stated that for the period 2016-2019, a fairly developed market of design services has been formed in Ukraine. Its key features are the attraction to large cities, diversification by specialties and grounds on the existing, including the Soviet, experience, as well as concentration and duplication of functions, in particular, design institutes by the commercial sector, etc. Significant potential is due to intellectual capacity, diversity of tasks and the accumulated practice of Ukrainian designers, which provides certain advantages in the international market of design services. Today, the customer is moving away from design technologies, which means that the designer’s work must be built in such a way that the customer understands the need for investment at the design stage of the facility, taking into account further operation. The lack of design and the need to revise salaries affects the value of real estate. The lack of engineers affects the organization of construction and the market as a whole. Increasing the salaries of design engineers, creating more favourable working conditions lead to an increase in the cost of construction work from 9 to 15%. Understanding the difficulties faced by the design industry, it is logical to think about the ways to overcome them in the near future. Conclusion. Nowadays, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the analysis of the engineering labour market in construction allows to understand the innovative activity of the project enterprise and to mark the course of further development of the market of design services in Ukraine. Reducing unhealthy competition among designers is possible due to new approaches to work aimed at optimizing and improving the performance of design companies. Stories of design engineers having to leave their favourite profession to make a living are a thing of the past. Now it is a prestigious and profitable speciality. To be relevant in the profession, you must, first of all, learn foreign languages, read technical literature in English. Self-education, i.e. the ability to independently search and analyse information, to develop oneself as a specialist, is of great importance. High erudition is a quality possessed by the Soviet-era engineers and often lacking in many modern design engineers. At the same time, it is of great importance because the building is a single organism, and the design engineer must understand not only construction, but also related fields. The main feature that distinguishes a design engineer is a certain mindset. And the work must be highly paid for this. Considering the issue of the engineering labour market in Ukraine, it is safe to say that there are temporary professions that are in vogue, and there are those that will always be in demand, and the profession of design engineer is one of them.