Impact of IT growth on labour demand in the EU transport infrastructure development

Abstract

Purpose – the purpose of this research is to find the benchmark, triggering a significant shift of the EU transport infrastructure construction sector from usual labour to the IT-based project implementation. The work aims to find obstacles that hold off IT from booming in this sector. Research methodology – following the literature overview, three bills of quantities of sample transport infrastructure construction projects selected as the objects for analysis and the mathematical-statistical method was applied to actually completed projects to find the benchmark for costs of respective IT development. Findings – the findings of this work suggest a 10% benchmark of project scope, applicable for IT innovations at the expense of human labour demand. Research limitations – EU financial support and public procurements of investment projects are mostly applicable for investment phase. This research is therefore limited to the analysis of investment activities. Practical implications – the industry stakeholders would welcome the IT if innovations developed with the budget not exceeding the benchmark. IT researchers and developers could use the results for cost adjustments of their offered solutions to the EU transport construction companies. Originality/Value – this work encourages discussions on initiation of the initiatives at the political level aiming to the requalification of the existing unemployed labour force in order to meet the current labour demand in the construction market as a whole. It provides a direction for future scientific researches and IT developers in order to increase the attractiveness of IT for application in construction projects.