Vocational Skill Mobility and Its Effect on Occupational Engagement Among Tradesmen and Craftsmen in Building Sector

Building sector in Nigeria has suffered skill erosion overtime. Foreigners with special skill has mobilized their skill into the sector and there had been mass exodus of imported skills into the sector thereby forcing citizens to jettison idea of engaging indigenous artisans in the face of superior skills and knowledge. The aim of the study is to appraise the vocational skills and competence of the indigenous and foreign artisans, vocational mobility in building sector, job mobility pattern among artisans, sectors involved, attendant effects, both favorable and unfavorable, and possible ways of addressing identified threat. The study engaged 120 questionnaire using random sampling technique. The questionnaire was designed in Likert scale, structured on sematic rating scale 1 to 5. The study identified the following reasons among others reasons behind the disparity in occupational engagement among artisans in Nigeria building sector, the reasons include: inadequate skill and knowledge by indigenous artisans, no vocational focus, half -baked knowledge of the work, poor workmanship and poor finishing and poor education background or lack of former education among others. The study recommended the following factors as panacea to the problem; reinvigoration of artisans competence, continuous training of the artisans, value reorientation of artisans, promoting technology transfer among indigenous artisans and foreign artisans