Road “workers”- What are you up to?

Literally every time I drive through road works, the majority of the workers are on their phones and vaping, or 3 of them are watching one guy dig a hole. The hardest they seem to work is at pack up time.

It seems to take an eternity for any work to progress, and they finally finish, they’re back in 2 months because they did a terrible job and it needs to be redone.

Is this just a jobs program to keep people off the benefit? Can any road workers illuminate me regarding what I’m paying taxes for?