Current at: 12 August 2008
Lack Of Skilled workers Threatens Housing Production
By Stuart Collins, HIA Executive Director ACT/Southern NSW
Australia’s Vocational Education and Training (VET) system is failing to deliver the skilled workers the industry needs. The HIA-Austral Bricks Trade Report for the June quarter has found that all 13 trades surveyed remain in short supply in all regions.
If industry was to turn the clock back 12 months it would be no surprise to learn that skills shortages across all trades were as much an issue then as they are now.
In fact the situation has become more urgent. At a time when housing activity is in decline due to higher interest rates and tighter lending, there has been no sign of a major recovery in skills shortages in residential construction. There have been some slight improvements in trade availability but this has only served to mask the full gravity of the skills problem.
Housing activity is expected to increase dramatically over the next five years with an underlying demand for Australia to build one million new homes. The existence of skilled labour will be a very big factor in determining whether industry is able to meet this pent up demand in the areas where new construction is desperately needed.
If the residential construction industry is to have any chance of increasing its new home production there needs to be an urgent overhaul of the outmoded VET system. VET is not responding to industry’s needs – it lacks choice and flexibility.
It is also heavily skewed towards traditional apprenticeships. This is at the expense of a range of training pathways that could provide a more attractive incentive to the 60 per cent of apprentices in key trades that cancel within their first two years.
These same pathways could just as easily provide a mechanism for recognition of the skills acquired on the job by the 40 per cent of tradespeople that have no formal qualifications. This will encourage them to engage with the training system to re-skill and up-skill.
Despite wide acceptance of the need for urgent reform of the training system nothing much has happened for a very long time. The modernisation of the training system is being hampered by too many vested interests that are not representative of industry and are blind to industry’s needs.
The time for reviews is over and instead of constantly talking about training reform there is a need to effect it. Failure to bring about this reform will be catastrophic and will confirm just how real the skills shortage is. This will be of no consolation to those that miss out on their dream of owning a home or worse still, end up homeless.