Selecting an appropriate contractor is a crucial phase that clients normally conduct to execute projects. Extensive research has been conducted on the main contractor selection criteria such as financial stability and technical and management capability. However, few studies focusing on health and safety criteria are being used to assess contractors’ safety performance in the existing selection process. Hence, this paper aims to analyse the existing literature on health and safety criteria for contractor selection in construction. The articles were retrieved using developed search string from renowned databases such as Scopus, Ebscohost, Web of Science, Science Direct and Dimensions. This search resulted in a total of 38 papers which can be systematically reviewed. Six main themes were discovered to represent safety prequalification criteria for construction projects, namely, experience and work history, safety control system, safety policy and management, accident rates and records, safety promotion and environmental concerns. Under these six main themes, there are 25 safety prequalification criteria that have been substantially published in previous literature, and the most-cited criteria are examined. This study brings a significant contribution to construction industry professionals, especially clients, when selecting a capable contractor in construction projects. By identifying the safety prequalification criteria, clients can assess a contractor’s efforts in ensuring safe execution of a project before awarding the contract to them. Additionally, the findings of the present study could contribute towards developing a comprehensive framework on contractor selection criteria that incorporates safety leading and lagging indicators.

Cost is the prime factor for driving to the successful of a project. A poor cost performance become a common problem in worldwide which bring a significant financial risk to both contractors and clients. Construction projects are relatively risky because the projects operate in a complexity and dynamic situation. This study aimed to explore the major contributors of cost overrun and propose strategies in minimizing the cost overrun factors involving local private residential projects in Malaysia. A quantitative method was applied to the respondents from contractors firm Grade G7 in Selangor area, and the data were analyzed using Likert scale to obtain mean score. There are 5 categories of cost overrun factors found from previous studies. Design error and poor contractors site supervision were ranked as the top two contributors to cost overrun in Private Residential Projects. Additionally, 79% of the respondents agreed that construction projects face cost overrun with an average amount of 1-5% of contract sum. 9 strategies are available to overcome the problems and the result shows that effective strategic planning is the most effective mitigation.

The Malaysian construction industry is greatly depending on the foreign labours to carry out works due to shortage of the local labours. This has increased the amount of foreign labours in Malaysian construction industry and also has affected the social problems in the country. In February 2016, the government has come to an agreement to restrict the employment of the foreign labours in order to lessen the reliant of the foreign labours. Therefore, this research was conducted to study the impacts of restricting the employment of foreign labours in Malaysian construction industry and also to propose the strategies for contractors to overcome the restriction of the foreign labours. A quantitative method was employed in this research by obtaining the data from questionnaire survey to 44 numbers of G7 contractors in Selangor. The data were analysed using statistic method and mean index analysis. The results indicate numerous impacts due to the restriction of foreign labours. Amongst the impacts are the increase of labour cost such as raising the wages, bonus and incentives to attract the local labours to work in the construction industry and increase the employment of illegal and local labours at construction site. However, there are strategies to overcome the restriction of foreign labours which are fully optimize the used of available labour, provide training to the unskilled labours and apply technologies, plant and machineries to substitute the labours. This study will be beneficial to contractors in order to manage the human resources in the construction industry.