1. 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 - This group is involved in
the building 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 building work carried out around the
world today is usually co-ordinated by the general
contractors and will often specialize in one particular type
of building work. 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 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 project can be extremely
expensive in today's market.
Currently there are over 8 million employed within the
building 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.
