A construction worker or builder is a professional, tradesman, or labourer who directly participates in the physical construction of the built environment and its infrastructure.
The division of labour of construction encompasses a diverse range of specialized skills, as well as manual labour.
The International Labor Organization (ILO) estimated that, at the end of 2006, 90% of the construction workers in China were migrant workers—at a time when 19.6% of the nation's total labor pool were migrant workers. The migrant workers turned to construction work after their farming communities collapsed into poverty. At the time of the report, 40 million migrants in China worked construction. A great deal of the construction projects were in Beijing, which the government wished to "remake… into a modern symbol of China's rising international stature and growing economic strength."
In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking. Normally, the job is managed by a project manager, and supervised by a construction manager, design engineer, construction engineer or project architect.
For the successful execution of a project, effective planning is essential. Involved with the design and execution of the infrastructure in question must consider the environmental impact of the job, the successful scheduling, budgeting, construction site safety, availability of building materials, logistics, inconvenience to the public caused by construction delays and bidding, etc.