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The national’s peak building industry association, Master Builders of Australia, said the “people problem” was the biggest challenge facing the $200 billion construction sector. “If we don’t get this people problem right, we are not going to build the 1.2 million homes under the National Housing Accord. We will struggle with the infrastructure needs of the country, including the Olympic build,”, MBA chief executive Denita Wawn said. The MBA said Australia would need an additional 116,700 workers by mid-2029 to reach the National Housing Accord goal – with almost as many new workers needed to bridge the shortfall in the civil and commercial sectors. “There is an additional shortage of around about 100,000 extra workers that we need for commercial and civil … we’ve got the Olympics in Queensland – a huge amount of commercial and civil work required”, Mrs Wawn said. Citing government data showing the number of apprentices in training fell by almost 5 per cent to 115,970 in the year to March, Mrs Wawn said bringing on – and holding on to – more apprentices would help fix the shortages. “We need to totally change the narrative of why university should be seen as the be-all-and-end-all over a trade,” Mrs Wawn said. “Unfortunately trades are still seen as second-class citizens. While I think the government has good intentions of encouraging people into trades, they are still heavily focused on encouraging people into university. “The amount of people who go into a trade – they get paid extraordinarily well. They then have an opportunity to be their own boss, start their own business. That is a massive aspiration.” Olympic butterflyer Matt Temple may not compete in the 2032 Games, but still hopes to stamp his mark – as a tradie. “Maybe I will have been involved in one of the builds up there – the National Aquatic Centre would be pretty cool,” the part-time carpenter, 26, from Adelaide, said. “From a young age I’ve wanted to be an electrician. I have done some electrical work experience … I’d like to follow that path (long term) and go into some commercial electrical work. “I love it. It gives me a break from the pool and I aspire to be a tradesman in the future so any learning towards my goal is good learning.” Want to read more of the stories you love on one of our state news websites? Click here to sign up for a free trial and access 12 locked articles on web over 12 weeks. Limits and T&Cs apply. Wayne Large, owner of Amazing Fencing in Yatala, on the northern Gold Coast, said he had gone from working with as many as 25 contractors per week in 2018 to as few as six per week now. “I’ve been trying for the last four years to get a crew together,” he said. Mr Large said despite his contractors taking home between $2500 and $3000 per week, young people were “not keen” and “not interested” in having a go. Master Builders says Australia said another significant factor contributing to the shortage of tradies is the complex and expensive system for bringing in skilled migrants from similar jurisdictions. According to Mrs Wawn, the “totally unacceptable” process means it takes 12-18 months and costs up $15,000 to bring in a tradie from overseas – in contrast to more efficient regimes in Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Michael Oldenhof, chief executive of Victoria-based Hermitage Building Group, said bringing in more tradies from overseas was the answer. “We’ve got to bring more skilled migrants across. Most of our trades are now migrants, but that’s not enough,” he said. Mr Oldenhof said shortages would become more acute as housing sales pick up, with smaller builders set to face labour raids from bigger builders. “My fear is now that we’ve seen some good sales months the last four or five months … if every builder is doing 20 per cent next year, we’re all having to find 20 per cent extra labour,” Mr Oldenhof said. “What happened three or four years ago when things got busy and there were trade shortages back then – not only were we trying to find new trades, we had other builders trying to take our trades. “We had some bigger builders come on and offer our bricklayers [and] our carpenters more money. So we’re fighting to keep our own trades, while fighting to find even more.” This article is part of the Back Australia series, which was supported by Australian Made Campaign, Harvey Norman, Westpac, Bunnings, Coles, TechnologyOne, REA Group, Cadbury, R.M.Williams, Qantas, Vodafone and BHP. Originally published as Tradie shortage threatens housing goal and Olympics preparations
