Barriers to employment faced by disadvantaged groups targeted by new social procurement policies
- Publication Type:
- Conference Proceeding
- Citation:
- Association of Researchers in Construction Management, ARCOM 2019 - Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference, 2019, pp. 15 - 23
- Issue Date:
- 2019-01-01
Open Access
Copyright Clearance Process
- Recently Added
- In Progress
- Open Access
This item is open access.
© 2019 Association of Researchers in Construction Management, ARCOM 2019 - Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference. All rights reserved. Social procurement is an increasingly popular policy mechanism to encourage construction firms to employ people suffering disadvantage in the communities in which they build. However, research into the challenges which policy-makers might face in implementing these new employment requirements. To address this important question, a survey of seventy Australian construction subcontractors shows that the main barriers to the implementation of new social procurement employment requirements are: A lack of government support and incentives; the cost of training, supervision and workplace support for targeted groups; and a perception that these groups are a risk and not able to fit-in and work effectively in the construction industry. These findings provide a more nuanced understanding of the challenges involved in social procurement implementation. This is important in reducing the risk that social procurement policy runs ahead of industry practice and capability to deliver on what are becoming an increasingly complex array of employment requirements.
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: