Significant Drivers of Labour-Only Subcontracting in Housing Delivery in Ghana

Abstract

World Bank (1984) for instance defined the domestic labour subcontracting DLS as a union of activities that leads to the construction of buildings at relatively low-cost. This study was conducted to explore the role of labour-only subcontracting in the housing delivery in Ghana and the factors that drive this system, Tamale Metropolis was the research area. The significant of this study is to help the government, clients, contractors and other stake holders in the building industry appreciate how the use of labour-only subcontracting can improve the supply of housing in the Ghanaian building industry. Descriptive survey design with quantitative methods was utilized. The researcher used purposive sampling technique to sample 190 individual house owners whiles census technique was adopted to use the 42 estate developers in the Metropolis for the study. Two separate questionnaires were used which was a 5-point likert scale to gather data to address the research question. The instruments were pilot tested and the reliability coefficients were estimated to be .893 and .843 for the individual house owners and estate developers respectively. The statistical tools adopted for the analysis of the research question were means and standard deviations, frequencies and percentages for the demographic data. Independent sample t-test tool was used to determine whether there was any statistically significant difference between the estate developers and the individual house owners sampled in relation to the drivers of labour-only subcontracting. The data analyzed showed that there was no statically significant difference between the two groups. The findings of the study showed that an increase in productivity, quality and cooperation, highly flexibility and convenience and lack of ready funds/cash were identified as the major drivers of the labour-only subcontracting. It is recommended that the necessary policies be implemented to create training centers in the country with proper regulatory measures to ensure that the youth build much more skills to meet modern requirements.