Defining The Construction Industry

As you will soon see the construction industry is divided into 3 major groups. Which are shown below.

1. Construction of Buildings Contractors (General Contractors) - These are the ones which are involved with the building of either residential, commercial, industrial or other types of buildings.

2. Heavy and Civil Engineering Construction - This group is involved in the construction of sewers, roads, highways, bridges and tunnels as well as any other projects relating to movement of traffic.

3. Specialty Trade Contractors - These are ones which are involved in a specialized trade such as carpentry, plumbing, electrical and painting (decorating). Also you should include plasterers into this particular group of the construction industry. These particular contractors will only work in one trade only and so will not very often get involved in any further part of the construction work other than with the work that they are actually qualified and trained to do.

However most of the construction work carried out around the world today is usually co-ordinated by the general contractors and will often specialize in one particular type of construction. They will often take full responsibility for the construction project and will usually employ a project manager to ensure that the work is carried out efficiently and smoothly as possible. This ensures that are deadlines and completion dates can be met. As well as employing their own people to carry out general construction duties they often sub-contract out the more specialized word to specialty trade contractors. Plus if they have any heavy construction work that needs to be carried out as part of the construction project then this may well be contracted out also. However there are many construction companies around today who will employ every type of person from the various construction groups shown above. By doing this they are actually able to lower their costs. Unfortunately subcontracting some parts of a construction project can be extremely expensive in today's market.

Currently there are over 8 million employed within the construction industry in the US of these 1.9 million are self employed. In fact it is one of the US's largest industries for employing people.

Construction Costs