Decade-long shortfall of tradies tipped to undermine nation’s housing push

The supply of tradespeople, architects and other building professionals will fail to meet projected demand well into the 2030s, a major building report has found, as Labor faces a federal election battle over the housing crisis.

Build Skills Australia – a jobs and skills council established by Labor to address workforce planning and training needs – has released its workforce plan, which warns that the government’s ambitious housing target of 1.2 million new homes over five years will face supply constraints.

The building industry faces a chronic shortage of workers in coming years.Credit: Louie Douvis

The report estimates that next year’s building-sector labour demand will be more than 2 million workers, but there will be supply shortfall of almost 200,000.

By 2030, the report predicts, the sector will need 2.44 million workers to satisfy demand, but fall short by 370,000 workers. By 2035, the gap will still be significant, at 267,000 workers.

David Schubert, the director of Sydney construction company Bau Group, said the building industry was suffering not just due to a labour shortage, but a capability gap.

“The numbers are up in terms of the labour but ... the problem is the skill level is not there,” he said.

“We find it difficult to actually get the labourers that have that experience and the skill level that we’re after, and that’s a big challenge for us.”

Build Skills Australia found six trends driving a wedge between the demand for built environment services – covering the building sector and all support industries – and the supply of workers. These are: the transition to net-zero emissions, geopolitical shifts, increased regulation, housing shortages, the ageing population and technological change.

Jobs and Skills Australia executive director David Turvey said the capability gap in the construction sector was a key finding from its own analysis.

Bau Group director David Schubert says job applicants often lack the skills his company requires.Credit: James Brickwood

“Our data shows there are enough people applying for the jobs, but they’re not being taken up by employers,” he said.

“For example, the reasons could be they don’t have enough work experience or the things they learned in their formal qualifications aren’t what the employers are wanting.”

Jobs and Skills Australia is still to determine the occupations to be covered by a new skills-in-demand visa after its draft list did not include plumbers, bricklayers, cabinet makers and other tradespeople needed to tackle Australia’s housing crisis.

Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn said the construction industry was built on the success of migration and called on the government to consider a specific visa for tradespeople.

“Our view is that, like New Zealand, Canada and the UK, we do need a specific tradie visa that recognises that we have a significant shortage [and] has ways of recognising their qualifications,” she said.

“It’s an international marketplace where we need to be competitive, and currently we’re not.”

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive Andrew McKellar backed Wawn’s view, arguing it was “absurd” that all skilled tradespeople weren’t included in the skills-in-demand visa.

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