Cranes up but delays as well
Weather, staff woes
THE construction industry is facing fresh delays due to volatile weather events, a shortage of materials and a lack of skilled workers, despite high levels of work now under way.
The latest edition of the RLB Crane Index found there was a record 868 cranes spotted across the country, a new high for the index since its inception in 2012.
Rider Levett Bucknall’s Oceania director of research and development Domenic Schiafone said while the strong number of cranes showed a continued resilience in the construction industry, projects were being delayed.
Big-ticket developments have been dumped around the country as apartment players struggle to lock in pre-sales as interest rates rise and new office schemes are taking longer to get off the ground.
War in Ukraine and higher material prices have also hit confidence and lifted prices, pushing some builders to the brink. “If cranes providing logistical assistance to multistorey developments remain on site longer than anticipated due to weather events and supply chain disruptions, the cost of preliminaries increase, causing overall costs to rise,” Mr Schiafone said.
Sydney continued to be the biggest contributor to the crane count with 380 cranes, representing 44 per cent of all cranes in the country.
Crane numbers increased across residential, civic and data centres and for industrial work in Sydney at a significant rate, whereas there were only small increases in aged care, civil, education, and mixed-use sectors.
Melbourne had 206 cranes sighted for the last quarter, with 82 in Brisbane, 51 in Perth and 55 on the Gold Coast. There were 23 in Canberra, 17 in Adelaide, 16 in the Sunshine Coast, 15 in Wollongong, 12 in Newcastle, 10 in the Central Coast and two cranes in both Hobart and Darwin.
The churn rate of cranes across Australia also fell significantly in the past 18 months, suggesting cranes are staying on construction sites longer. Between the first quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2021, the churn rate sat around 50 per cent, however, since the first quarter of 2021, the churn rate steadily declined to 28 per cent in the third quarter of 2022. Sydney recorded a 27 per cent churn rate, most likely impacted by intense weather events and the lack of skilled labour.
For the 2022 financial year, construction work done was up 1.1 per cent, or $2.4bn, across the nation compared to 2021, data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed.
Total building approvals rose by 4.2 per cent, or $5bn, with residential approvals rising 2.5 per cent and non-residential by 6.3 per cent. The threat of weather events is looming larger. The Bureau of Meteorology has warned eastern Australia should be prepared for above-average rain over spring and early summer.