Thomas F. Prendergast, who stepped down on Jan. 30 as chairman and CEO of New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), has joined consulting firm STV.

Efforts to improve lagging construction productivity have largely failed, notably in the U.S., but skills shortages and increasing constraints on migration likely will inflate pay and force productivity improvements across the globe, according to a recent construction-industry survey and forecast by the McKinsey Global Institute.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has named former Ontario pension-fund giant CEO Jim Leech as special adviser to Canada’s newly authorized, but still unlaunched, federal infrastructure bank.