Labor Productivity in the Context of Ensuring Economic Security of Construction Companies

Assessing and managing the economic security of a company is critical to ensure its continued existence and development. The economic security of an enterprise implies the ability to maintain and increase its performance in the context of the negative influence of various factors (adverse market conditions, high tax burden, lack of investment, etc.). Ineffective business management can lead to disastrous results (up to bankruptcy and liquidation). Only in 2017, the number of construction companies decreased by 4 600, and the construction business turned out to be unprofitable in 2017 for 25% of its players. Labor productivity is one of the key indicators of the construction company's economic security. Many researchers associate the company's economic security primarily with personnel security. In terms of human resources management, the economic security of a company is considered in research works as its constituent element - personnel security embodied in ensuring the safety of property, preventing the disclosure of confidential information, leakage of experts, preventing corruption and thefts among employees. The problems of personnel selection and ensuring a favorable psychological climate in the team come to the fore in such studies. However, the correlation between the efficiency of using labor resources and the company's economic security is not paid enough attention in them. The basic rule of an effective organization's economy is an excess of labor productivity growth rates over wage growth rates. Throughout the study period (2005-17), the growth rates of the average monthly nominal accrued wages of employees of construction companies were significantly higher than the growth rates of labor productivity, i.e., in terms of efficiency of using labor resources, the companies worked inefficiently. In addition, the study revealed the presence of overdue wage arrears to builders, the amount of which was 435 million rubles at the beginning of 2018. The study of indicators of labor resources use by construction organizations made it possible to formulate the following risk factors for lowering economic security in the industry: overdue wage arrears to companies' employees, which causes the risk of workers' outflow from the industry to other sectors; the annual decline in labor productivity, which indicates the inefficient use of labor resources and entails deterioration in the economic performance of companies and a decrease in the return on investments; the excess of the wage growth rate over the labor productivity growth rate, which causes a violation of the basic rule of companies' economic efficiency, a decrease in economic profitability and, consequently, in the owners' interest in this area of business. Thus, the personnel component of ensuring the construction companies' economic security is of paramount importance. Under the conditions of inefficient use of labor resources, it is impossible for organizations to maintain their positions in the market and improve them. Therefore, the search and implementation of measures to increase labor productivity in order to ensure economic security is an urgent and necessary task for modern construction companies.

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