Builders of the 2012 Olympics facilities will have to compete for skilled workers due to a shortage in the labor market, according to Financial Times on Thursday.

ConstructionSkills, a council established by the government to ensure that the industry has enough qualified workers, estimates that building for the Olympics will create 33,500 extra construction jobs over the next years.

The peak year for employment would be 2010 when 7,500 workers would be needed, the council said.

Sheila Hoile, director of strategy at CITB-ConstructionSkills in charge of recruitment and training, said: "Building the Olympics needs to be seen in the wider context of the current massive demand on the UK construction industry. In the south-east and Greater London alone there is 34 billion pounds (63 billion US dollars) worth of projects of over 100 million pounds (184 million dollars) each in the pipeline."

This was in addition to the normal Greater London construction workload worth about 12 billion pounds (22 billion dollars) each year, the paper reported.

An estimated 33,500 Olympic construction jobs include 6,500 managerial or administrative staff, 2,800 professionals such as architects and 24,000 craft jobs, according to the paper.

The construction industry forecast it needed 88,000 new recruits a year even before the Olympics were awarded to London.

Source: Xinhua