A new report by the Housing Industry Association (HIA) reveals shortages in eight of 13 skilled trades in the June quarter.
The results have led the HIA to warn Australia about the issue and ask that the country’s skilled migration policy takes the shortage into consideration.
“The structural shortage of skilled labour in the residential sector is an obstacle preventing an adequate supply of new homes,” says HIA’s chief economist Harley Dale. “Addressing this shortage therefore forms a vital component to ensuring Australia’s critical housing shortage improves.”
According to Dale, the current immigration policy focuses on workers for the broader construction sector, but more focus needs to be placed on the need for residential builders and tradespeople, due to Australia’s undersupply of housing.
“It would go a long way, I think, towards addressing the short-term problems we’re going to have with a lack of skilled labour – problems that aren’t going to disappear over the next 12 months, two years, despite moves in the right direction on domestic skills and apprentices.”
The report, conducted by HIA and Austral Bricks, shows bricklayers and landscapers are some of the sector’s most in-demand occupations.
