Employment and social development in the EU – Quarterly review
The EU Commission has presented its latest quarterly analysis on employment and social developments in the EU. In the year to the third quarter of 2016, the number of employees with permanent contracts grew by 1.8%. This represents an increase of 2.8 million employees, which is seven times more than the increase in temporary contracts of 420 thousand (1.6% growth). In December 2016, there were 1.8 million less unemployed people than the year before. Overall EU employment continued to increase across services sectors and to a smaller extent in industry and construction.
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“Let’s talk digital!” say our Belgian colleagues
The annual Belgian Construction Forum took place last week in Brussels and offered a very convincing programme! This year, the Construction Confederation chose the very actual theme of digitalisation in the construction sector. Supported by a series of contractors’ feedbacks from their own experience, the Confederation’s main message was that in particular the transition to BIM (Building Information Modeling) is an opportunity to be seized right now by construction companies of all sizes.
BIM represents altogether new opportunities and challenges for contractors – in terms of costs, reskilling, equipment, legal aspects, etc. – but the Confederation was very clear on this: the role of professional federations is to help their members to successfully adapt to digitalisation.
FIEC chose this same empowering approach when setting up a working group dedicated to BIM last summer!
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Survey about transportation of construction materials in urban areas
An EU project funded by Horizon 2020, SUCCESS (Sustainable Urban Consolidation CentrES for conStruction) is researching how to improve transportation of materials to construction sites in urban zones. It is developing and testing efficient solutions, from both the economic and environmental perspective. FIEC’s Spanish Member Federation, which has a member that is participating in the project, would like to invite construction companies to participate in a survey, so that the researchers have as much information as possible on this subject.
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