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The Housing Industry Association (HIA) has released a report that warns that trade shortages present a significant threat to achieving the Housing Accord’s target of building 1.2 million homes over the next five years.
Australia does not currently have enough tradies to build the number of homes needed to house the population and take pressure off housing costs. The report titled All Hands on Deck presents a plan to grow the construction workforce and enable the Housing Accord target to be achieved.
“The residential building industry currently employs approximately 278,000 tradies across the twelve key trade occupations required for home building. The trades workforce needs to grow by at least 30 per cent to meet the Accord’s goals. That is over 83,000 additional tradies.
“To achieve the target, an average of 240,000 homes must be built annually—a level that has only been approached twice in Australia’s history.
“This means a significant boost in the number of chippies, sparkies, plumbers, brickies and concreters, to get these much-needed homes out of the ground and to lock up.
“Despite efforts to boost the domestic trades workforce, significant challenges remain. Creating career opportunities for the local workforce should be a priority, however this alone will not solve to the tradie shortage.
“Skilled migration is the other key lever that the government can pull in the short term to address the immediate shortage of tradies.
“The time for business as usual solutions has passed, and we need ‘all hands on deck’ and coordinated government actions to address the chronic shortage of tradies,” concluded Mr Murray.
P: 02 6245 1379
M: 0438 103 651
E: g.murray@hia.com.au
“HIA welcomes the Housing Delivery Authority (HDA) now accepting Expressions of Interest for major residential projects to be assessed through a new faster approval pathway. However, more needs to be done to address the housing crisis in NSW“ said Brad Armitage HIA Executive Director NSW.
“HIA welcomes the Federal Government’s commitment of $50 million to support increased social housing supply through the construction of enabling infrastructure in Far North Queensland,” HIA Executive Director Peter Fry said today.
“Building approvals data reveals the ongoing strengthening in the new home building market and continue to point to a moderate-pace recovery in 2025,” stated HIA Senior Economist, Matt King.
“Figures from the National Centre for Vocational and Education Research reaffirm the workforce challenges facing the construction industry,” HIA’s Executive Director Future Workforce, Geordan Murray said today.