Assessment of Factors Affecting Labor Productivity in Road Construction Projects in Oromia Region Bale Zone

Abstract

Construction labor costs account for 30-60% of the total cost of a project. Construction labor productivity is a critical for the profitability of construction projects (Madi, 2003). The study aims at identifying the factors affecting labor productivity in road construction projects in Oromia regional state Bale Zone from the view point of different respondents including project managers, construction supervisors, engineers and other who have experience in road construction. About 61 Factors were identified through literature review and grouped into eleven groups. Respondents were required to rate how 61 factors affecting labor productivity with respect to their importance. The 11 groups of factors which have significant impact on the labour productivity are ranked depending on their RII as: Material/Equipment Factor 1 st with RII of 0.819, Manpower/Work Force Factor 2nd with RII of 0.764, Management Factor 3rd with RII of 0.737, Quality factors 4 th with RII of 0.720, Supervision Factor 5th with RII of 0.699, Safety factor 6th with RII of 0.691, Motivation Factor 7th with RII of 0.682, Schedule Factor 8 th with RII of 0.647,Politicalfactor 9 th with RII of 0.620, Natural/environmental Factor 10th with RII of 0.566 and Cultural and religious factor 11th with RII of 0.541.According to the result of the study the top factors that affect labor productivity includes: Lack of experience of labor, Material construction shortage, Lack of labour skills, Accident, tools and equipment shortage, Labor’s bad habit, Poor site management, Lack of Labor surveillance, Payment delay and Ignore safety precautions. The reliability, validity of data is tested using Chronbach’s Alpha value (α= 0.973) by SPSS. The degree of agreement of respondents is checked by Pearson correlation coefficient and there is high degree of agreement between respondents regarding the factors affecting labor productivity. It’s recommended that road construction organization assign project manager and construction supervisors with sufficient management skills in project, minimize Accident and any safety problems, develop human resources through proper and continuous training programs frame a strong assignment, vision and a planned approach to overcome poor productivity of labor. It’s recommended that the government should consider as major concern, to enforce hard and fast laws and regulation that help to obtain productive work force in the road construction.