The construction industry’s summer upturn has given Russell Taylor Group a huge boost with its Construction Trades team reaching record numbers.

The business has reported the placement of temporary construction workers in jobs almost doubling in recent weeks.

And to help deal with the increased recruitment workload, seven new consultants have been taken across all sector teams at the company’s headquarters at Riverside Park, Bromborough, over the past six weeks.

Construction Trades divisional manager Gary Jones said: “We have experienced a major upturn of activity in the past two months, due in the main to the great weather and the ongoing growth of the Northern Powerhouse fuelling the doubling of temporary workers.”

Official statistics have confirmed that the UK construction industry rebounded after a difficult start to the year. The Office for National Statistics reports that construction output grew by 0.9 per cent in the second quarter of the year (April to June) 2018, recovering from a 0.8 per cent fall in the first quarter.

The quarter-on-quarter increase in construction output was driven by a 2.7 per cent increase in repair and maintenance work.

The turnaround began in May, with a 2.9 per cent rise on April. June construction output was 1.4 per cent up on May. This rise was driven predominantly by the continued growth in infrastructure new work, which increased by 9.2 per cent.

Compared to Q2 2017, output in Q2 2018 was up by 0.8 per cent and quarterly industry output has returned to £40.9bn, matching the level recorded at the end of 2017.

However, Gary Jones warned that there are still major concerns about future growth for the industry due to skilled labour shortages.

He said: “Recruitment is likely to be restricted by the ever increasing acute shortage of labour, both skilled and unskilled.

“The summer school holiday period represents a yearly spike in labour shortages and here the overall trend appears to be increasing - and Brexit looming looks to be exacerbating the issue even further.”

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, businesses say they are suffering from staff shortages because of a fall in EU nationals coming to the UK.

Two in five employers (40 per cent) said they had found it more difficult to fill vacancies during the past 12 months due to a combination of fewer and less suitable applicants. Due to shortages, more than half of the 2,000 employers surveyed by the organisation said they had been forced to start raising salaries to recruit staff and retain existing employees.