The Impact of the 2012 Olympics on the Construction Industry

From the time London was awarded the 2012 Olympic Games in July 2005, the impact on the construction trade has been a point of speculation for many pundits. Since 2002, the UK construction industry has reported buoyant conditions with some large housing and office projects managing to catapult the total value of the market up by some 15%. It is certainly an industry that is still on the rise so why are so many construction economists fearing the worst when it comes to the Olympic Games? One concern is that the project has been blown completely out of proportion with regard to the amount of work that is actually available. Various figures have been speculated but how accurate are they really. In a report by the CITB Construction skills, who are conducting a huge analysis into the Olympic impact on construction, it is estimated that the Olympic workforce will peak at around 7,500. The report shows that the industry has taken in somewhere between 20 and 40 times the this amount of workers from Eastern Europe in less time than it will take to build the Olympics! Does 7,500 workers constitute a substantial impact in an industry that currently employs over 2 million people and is already creating work at a higher rate than that predicted for the Olympic Games? In the grand scheme of things, are the Olympic Games really such a huge project? Would much of the planned work go ahead anyway even if London were not hosting the Olympics, like Stratford City for example?

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