Tradie Barrier

In parts of Australia, you can’t hire a tradesperson for love nor (lots of) money, writes Harvey Grennan.

Having trouble finding tradespeople? You’re not alone.

Recently, a friend in Sydney needed a laundry wall tiled, just 2x3m. After seven calls, only one tiler was interested in providing a quote. When he did, the sum was exorbitant. And, he warned, he couldn’t get around to the job for three months. In the end, my friend and her husband tackled it themselves, having learnt the hard reality of the current trades shortage.

Even though the total construction workforce hit a record 1.105 million in February this year, there still aren’t enough boots on the ground to keep up with demand. According to the Bureau of Statistics, in the December 2016 quarter the value of building work on new homes and additions nationally was $18.016 billion, and 56,357 dwelling units were commenced. Compare this with December 2012, when the value of residential building work was $11.602 billion, with 39,267 homes started. That’s an increase of 55.3 per cent and 43.5 per cent respectively. No wonder it’s hard to find a tradie – they’re all too busy.

A recent survey of Master Builders Australia (MBA) members for the March quarter concluded that, although building activity in Queensland and WA remained depressed due to a reversal in interstate migration, overall “a strong pipeline of work… has driven an uptick in the index for expected future work”.

With boom conditions comes boom pricing. CoreLogic’s Cordell Projects division, which monitors the costs of building labour, materials and equipment hire, says that in the past five years, these have risen 23.3 per cent nationally. How will this affect the cost and availability of tradies to builders, renovators and homeowners? According to the MBA survey, skills shortages in some occupations are beginning to push up wages. The easiest trades to obtain, members say, are electricians, roof tilers and painters; the hardest are carpenters and bricklayers.

The Housing Industry Association (HIA) notes that there has been an aggregate shortage of trades workers for 14 consecutive quarters, leading to the current “moderate undersupply” of trades in all major regions except WA. According to the association’s Trades Report for the March quarter, shortages were recorded in 10 of the 13 main trades, with surpluses only in electrical trades and landscaping. Again, the most acute shortages were in bricklaying, wall and floor tiling, and carpentry.

The good news, according to the

HIA, is that while tradespeople are still in short supply, counterintuitively, prices may be starting to ease. Over the 12 months to March 2017, prices increased for joinery, painting and roofing work but actually decreased for electrical work and site preparation. The most noteworthy declines were in regional WA, Brisbane and Melbourne, while prices were up in SA and regional areas of NSW and Queensland and, to a minor extent, in Sydney.