Migration lever not enough to fix construction labour shortage

The construction industry must move past its reliance on migration to fill skilled labour gaps and instead foster more young and female talent in order to keep building into the future, says Build Skills Australia boss.

Ash Gammie is in her second year of her electrotechnology apprenticeship. Picture: Tim Hunter

The construction industry must move past its reliance on migration to fill skilled labour gaps and instead foster more young male and female talent in order to keep growing into the future as southeast Queensland increasingly lures workers away from other major centres.

That’s the view of Build Skills Australia chief executive Brett Schimming, who says a targeted campaign to promote career pathways to young people that surpass traditional apprenticeships like carpentry and plumbing is the only way to recruit enough people to keep work flowing.

“We’ve got this growth of work that is exponentially evolving, and we’ve got a population but not with enough workers to meet the skills gap,” Mr Schimming said.

“We can’t rely on what we’ve been doing. Naturally, there will be a role for skilled migration, but that won’t be the major contributor. We also need to, as a society, look to a bigger cohort of society than fit young men. We’ve got to start to open that conversation up.”

Analysis by the new federal government jobs task force established last month has found the skilled labour level in the construction sector is on track to sit 28 per cent below what is required by 2042, underpinned by the nation’s failure to replace ageing workers.

Construction workers are increasingly moving to Queensland from NSW and Victoria due to the state’s ballooning infrastructure pipeline.

BuildSkills executive director of research and planning, Rob Sobyra, said NSW’s previously unchallenged advantages of activity and workforce size were now being eroded by Queensland, which is also on track to surpass Victoria as the second-strongest construction state by the end of the decade.

“NSW’s population is 50 per cent larger than Queensland’s and its annual construction activity sits around $80bn – more than $10bn greater than Queensland’s,” Mr Sobyra said.

“Yet, those legacy advantages are being steadily eroded as Queensland continues to climb the economic leaderboard.

“Five years from now, construction activity in NSW is forecast to be unchanged.

“By contrast, construction activity in Queensland will rise to just shy of $80bn.”

But Mr Schimming says it’s not just work making the southeast corner of Queensland attractive, but also the lifestyle advantages increasingly sought by millennials and Gen Z workers in Australia.

“We also have a duty as an industry to ensure that we all work to change the culture,” he said.

“This means flexible working hours, appropriate facilities on job sites for women, being cognisant of the fact that there’s a blending of work, job sharing.”

While the Property Council of Australia backed greater diversity in the industry, chief executive Mike Zorbas said a targeted approach to skilled migration was necessary in the immediate term to get projects finished. “Creating a training system that matches our growing national needs and has the golden thread of industry diversity at its heart is vitally important,” Mr Zorbas said.

“And yet, we have to be realistic. The government’s laudable and substantial investment in training programs and TAFE initiatives will not bridge the gap to our national housing goals, once-in-a-generation state government infrastructure projects and the escalating demand for green energy infrastructure.

“New construction workers have historically made up just 1.8 per cent of our migrant intake, and this is simply not enough.”

BuildSkills is currently on a national roadshow to consult with employer groups, unions, and training and education bodies to create a national workforce plan to help future-proof the industry.