Construction Industry Workforce

The construction industry (6.2% of GDP in 2005) covers residential, non-residential and prefabricated buildings.  The industry is strongly influenced by economic cycles and therefore corresponding shortages or over-supplies in industry skills and qualified workers.

Building and construction forms part of a globally competitive industry, based on state of the art technology and innovative design techniques. Challenges lie in adapting to new technologies and products, providing sufficient flexibility in qualifications to attract and retain a youthful, more gender-balanced workforce, and in upskilling older workers for long term industry sustainability.

Structural change is reflected in the reduction of enterprise size and increase in enterprise numbers. The basic methods used by the Construction Industry have undergone few changes in recent years, but there have been significant technological changes in prefabrication, energy efficiency and project management tools. These advancements have affected a wide range of fields, from materials (concrete, metal pre-casting and alternative wood products), management methods (subcontracting, prefabrication and project management) and innovations (robotics, computer aided design and electronically linked project management teams). Benefits of technological advancement are also seen in increased productivity, new capital equipment and the improved energy efficiency of buildings.

In economic terms the Construction Industry is a major segment of the Australian economy employing nearly 900,000 people with half of this workforce in the housing sector. The industry has been experiencing a decade of consistent overall growth paralleled by skill shortages in virtually all trade and related occupations in Australia. Carpenters and Joiners, Plasterers, Bricklayers/stonemasons, Plumbers and others constantly show up as average to high in national job vacancy statistics.

The industry is characterised by contracting and with less that 3 persons per firm the norm is micro businesses with owners working directly in a trade area rather than just business management. The trend toward contracting labour and increasingly labour hire rather than direct employment is more pronounced in the General Construction Sector than any other. Demographic change is a strong factor in worker attraction and retention. Increasingly, an ageing and retiring workforce is expected to reduce the supply of workers across industry sectors. The young, mobile nature of the trades-based workforce results in a loss of skills due to movement into other occupations.

Growth in the industry and demand for skilled workers in all occupations has placed pressure on the training system to cope with employer and individual training needs. As with many traditional trade-based industries, the focus has been on full qualifications and apprenticeship is the usual pathway to skill development in construction trades. However, the trend towards specialisation has resulted in a narrower focus on training outcomes in some sectors such as residential building to provide for immediate skill needs Nonetheless, full trade outcomes are definitely highly valued across the industry although some enterprise managers in the industry say they seek tradespeople as future supervisors/managers not just to use and impart to apprentices their hand skills and knowledge.

This argues for an even stronger definition of what a tradesperson is in key occupations in the industry – beyond just the breadth of technical skills traditionally carried and perhaps at a higher qualification level in some cases to reflect the responsibility and accountability factors inherent in how skilled tradespeople are expected to work and guide/mentor others. 

Click below for more detailed sector implementation guidance and information.

Plumbing & Services

General Construction