Predicting the demand for construction manpower in the UK

The attributes of the variables - construction manpower and outputhave somewhat become benchmarks for summarizing most of the goings-on of theconstruction industry, which is beginning to throw up questions: how muchinformation do these variable communicate on skills crisis, what is the nature of theirrelationship, are there any evidence of ‘pattern matching’, if any, how significant isit? Thus, drawing on the theory of ‘pattern matching’ and concept of constructvalidity. This paper tests the hypothesis that annual manpower employed in theconstruction industry depends on annual output. The decomposition method of timeseries forecasting was used as a basis for operationalizing the components of the timeseries: seasonality, trend, cyclical and randomness. The coefficient of correlation is‘statistically significant’, and the null hypothesis is rejected. These findings are alsosignificant to the conceptualization of a ‘top-down’ simulation model fordisaggregating manpower – the final phase of an on-going PhD studies.