UK construction needs 44,690 new recruits a year for the next four years at least, says CITB following its Construction Skills Network research.

Last year it put the estimated annual recruitment requirement at 36,400. The year before, it estimated 29,050. The pressure seems to be growing.

Set this against the 7,280 apprentices completing in England in 2013 and the picture looks really rather depressing.

It’s hard not to be maddened by the inevitability of this rapidly growing workforce problem. I’ve found plenty of reasons to blog (not least here) on the predictable roadmap to a skills crisis for more than two years.

So what now?

From where the industry stands now there’s little hope of turning out enough suitably qualified construction workers to fill the expected skills gap in the short term. That is without a major plan leading to a scale of state interventions not seen since the early post-War years. I’ll not hold my breath.

The pool of ready-made unemployed construction workers is as small as it was during the boom, so little hope there.

There’s a chance older workers already in employment may hang on a bit longer. They seem to be. But that just buys a bit of time unless the industry finds new ways to employ those who find the physical side getting too much.

There’s hope that, with a more attractive outlook, former construction workers who found work elsewhere might be tempted back into the industry. And there may be some with similar skills in industries in decline that fancy moving into construction.

The attraction would become more significant if pay in construction rises rapidly as a result of the shortages. Tempting such people will help. It must be tried. But I doubt it’s a complete solution.

The industry could look to reducing its labour input. That pretty much means prefabrication to the lay person or modern methods of construction (MMC) as it’s described within business. You’d expect labour productivity to go up, as well as overtime. But major changes tend to happen gradually in construction.

So what’s left? Well the labour agents of Poland, Portugal, Latvia, Lithuania and Hungary, among others, will be once again licking their lips in anticipation of a bonanza.

OK, the irony doesn’t escape me either that prominent among the tattoos on the skin of this Government were “economic competence” and “get tough with immigration”.

But what do we have?

Such a massive hole in the construction workforce would have been avoided had more direct public investment in house building, schools and other essential infrastructure been forthcoming. I’ll not rerun the case for weighting public capital investment towards downturns, but simply say these things we desperately need for our future prosperity could have been bought more cost effectively by the nation when the private sector was in decline and Government borrowing rates were negligible, if not negative.

So what realistic short-term option will construction firms find to fill the hole in their labour force?

More migrant construction workers.

Surely this is not a situation this Government would have willingly chosen. But it is the predictable result of its choices.

Now I know it’s a cliché, but where’s the long-term joined-up thinking?

It’s desperately needed as the construction industry, no doubt with a sense of deja vu, navigates its way once again up the slope from a deep recession.

Perhaps of more immediate importance is the need to avoid silly short-term knee-jerk policies.

Am I asking too much?

Immigration tops the nation’s concerns according to Ipsos Mori’s “The Most Important Issues Facing Britain Today” poll in December.

Will vote chasing politicians in vote chasing season steer us towards tighter immigration controls?

If they do that really would leave the construction industry facing serious problems, both in the short and the long term.