Personnel shortage forces road builders to start developing an industry labor exchange

The road industry of Kazakhstan is one of the areas of activity where an acute shortage of qualified specialists has formed over the years. As a result, road construction in the country is often carried out by people without specialized education or who do not have a diploma of higher education at all.

Experts note five main sources of the problem: lack of funding for science in the road industry, insufficient training of university graduates, disinterest of existing specialists in improving their own skills, lack of a clear understanding of the quantity and quality of the current pool of professionals, as well as difficulties in finding the right employees faced by contractors.

To address these issues, it is proposed to reopen a separate area of training students in the specialty “Construction of roads and airfields”, which at a certain stage was included in the direction “Architecture and construction”, as well as to legislate the provision on the allocation of 0.5% of the cost of road construction for implementation of scientific expertise of projects and development of science in the road industry.

As an alternative solution to the problem, the Kazakhstan Road Research Institute will activate the work of the training center for the training, refresher course and advanced professional training of road workers. It additionally trains not only students, but also experienced professionals. A number of memorandums have already been signed with the country’s universities, and soon Kazakhstani students will be able to practice in real laboratories and on experimental sections of roads. The institute is also working on a bill, according to which road specialists will be required to improve their skills.

In addition, this year “KazdorNII” started developing a Unified qualification base for road industry specialists - a kind of industry labor exchange. The information system will include students and graduates of universities involved in the training of professional road builders, as well as active engineers, foremen, designers and other road construction specialists.

This will allow analyzing and predicting the sectoral labor market, and contractors will be able to find suitable graduates and certified specialists for the design, construction and reconstruction of roads online.

Creating such a digital directory will help road workers always stay at work, as well as develop their professional skills in order to remain in demand in the eyes of employers.

“The database will reflect information about the category and experience of these specialists. Their skills and certificates will be taken into account. This will solve the problem of shortage of personnel, and, accordingly, will have a positive impact on the quality of road construction,” says Gulzhamal Umarova, Director of the Training Center of “KazdorNII” JSC.

At the moment, the Institute has already developed a prototype of the system, obtained copyright. The filling of the base is planned to begin in 2023.