The construction sector accounts for nearly 10% of the UK economy employing, in one way or another, well over two million people.

It is also in deep recession. It shrank by 9% last year with a lost of 60,000 jobs and that contraction will not be reversed in the next five years - according to the Construction Skills Network (CSN).

Judy Lowe, the CSN's deputy chairman, told Today programme business presenter Simon Jack that "we don't see construction getting back to 2007 levels until 2022."

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