Looking for work or looking for workers? Days and hours of work in London construction in the eighteenth century

Abstract:
This paper provides new information and data on how work and pay actually operated for skilled and semi-skilled men on large London construction projects, and for the first time, offers detailed firm level evidence on the number of days per year worked by men. The results indicate that construction workers’ working hours and days were bounded by structural factors in both supply and demand, and that men worked a far lower number of days than has been assumed until now.