IT'S enough to make Oz, Dennis and Neville unpack their trowels and stay at home.

For the 1980s recession which forced many British brickies to seek work abroad -- as portrayed in the hit TV series Auf Wiedersehen Pet - looks to be a thing of the past.

The situation is now so bad that the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) has launched a controversial advertising campaign using sex, booze and holiday locations, which it hopes will entice young people into the construction trade.

Figures released by the CITB reveal that 16,000 more recruits are needed to join the industry in the region during the next five years. Nationally that figure is 370,000.

North-East stars Tim Healy (Dennis), Jimmy Nail, (Oz) and Kevin Whately (Neville) recently announced they will join the other three surviving Auf Wiedersehen Pet cast members to film a series set in the USA.

The CITB says construction companies are struggling to replace those workers laid off during the 1980s to fill the shortage of brickies, plasterers, electricians and surveyors. And in a reversal of the Auf Wiedersehen scenario, it could be foreign workers who plug the gaps.

Alistair Collin from the CITB in Sunderland said: "Construction isn't seen as attractive as it was ten to 15-years-ago.

"We're suffering a skills shortage and recruitment problem and its image has to be more appealing to young people.

"I was speaking to someone in London who said the biggest problem on construction sites is nobody speaks the same language.

"If you think about it, the Irish came over to build the railways so it's not unheard of.

"I think we probably will get people from the Eastern block."

Bellway Homes, in Newcastle, has experimented with building "flat pack" homes from panels assembled in factories in an effort to overcome the skills shortage.

Spokesman David Fryer said: "If skilled traders were going abroad about 20 years ago and they're still there then we want them back.

"Because if there weren't jobs here then, then you can bet your bottom dollar there are now."