Factors Affecting Labor Productivity in the Construction Industry

Labor productivity is gaining growing attention as the construction industry faces many challenges related to workforce, but one of the most important is poor labor productivity. Several construction projects were suffering from various problems, including poor management, declining fertility, and thus causing projects delay, and cost overruns. The main goals of this study, therefore, is to identify and rank the factors affecting labor productivity in the construction industry in Libya. To realize this objective, a statistically demonstrative sample of contractors and embassies were demanded to contribute to a structured questionnaire survey. The questionnaire contained 30 productivity factors that were secret under the following three primary categories: (1) Management, (2) Technological, (3) and Human/labor. The Management Group was ranked the first, followed by the Technological and Human/labors group. This study demonstrates that the following five factors, listed in descending order, are the most significant in their effects on construction labor productivity: (1) Lack of labor supervision; (2) Experience and skill of labor; (3) Construction technology; (4) Coordination among construction industry disciplines; (5) Errors in design drawings. The results obtained to fill a gap in knowledge of factors affecting labor productivity in Libya to develop a more in-depth perspective of the factors influencing the efficiency of operatives. This study also has provided some recommendations to be implemented by construction managers at the early stage of the construction project to achieve more effective management of construction labor forces.