This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
THE construction industry will need to attract around half a million workers by later 2026, and a major industry body is pushing governments to address biases pushing young people towards university at the expense of VET, and attracting more women into the workforce.
Master Builders Australia has released a blueprint for future-proofing the building and construction workforce. Its analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data on job mobility conservatively estimates industry attrition at 7.8%. To meet growth projections and replace workers that leave the industry Master Builders estimates that 486,000 workers need to enter the building and construction industry by the end of 2026.
Nearly half of the required workforce – 229,000 workers – will be in technician and trade roles, the vast majority of which will enter the industry through a trade apprenticeship.
“Construction is the backbone of the Australian economy, employing approximately 1.3 million people, providing infrastructure, commercial and community buildings, and homes for the growing population,” said Master Builders CEO Denita Wawn.
“With Australia’s population projected to grow by over 50% between 2022 and 2060, reaching nearly 40 million people, the industry will require a significant workforce to undertake the necessary building and construction work.”
“The nature of work in the industry is evolving due to increasing business specialisation, more offsite building, frequent job changes, technology integration, and complex regulatory requirements.
“Understanding the emerging and future workforce skills needs is critical for ensuring flexible pathways in the industry that meet the changing and diverse needs of workers, businesses, and employers.”
The blueprint aims to address attracting new workers into the industry, retaining current and emerging workers, and ensuring training and education products and pathways remain up-to-date and flexible.
Wawn said this includes addressing the bias pushing young people toward university at the expense of VET.
“Critically, this includes improving the quality of careers education in secondary and senior secondary schools.
The blueprint report cited the 2019 Expert Review of Australia’s VET System, in which Steven Joyce noted that, “Vocational education has been steadily losing the battle for hearts and minds with the university sector”.
“Fewer young people aspire to undertake vocational education courses. Many consider VET as less prestigious and only for students who are of low academic ability.”
Master Builders recommended improving the quality of careers education through a new federal, state and territory government national partnership agreement on quality careers education.
“This new agreement needs to adequately fund and resource schools to deliver comprehensive, unbiased, and up-to-date careers education to secondary and senior secondary school students.”
The blueprint also suggested “reframing the apprenticeship story”, which Master Builders said needs a “rebrand”, again citing a “lack of quality, unbiased and up-to-date careers education in schools”.
“To promote the value and potential of Australian apprenticeship pathways to young people, their parents and careers advisors Master Builders advocates the National Careers Institute work with industry to develop a coordinated national apprenticeship campaign.”
It suggested rebranding apprenticeships “from low pay to earn while you learn; from non-academic to challenging and inspiring; and from dead end to the beginning of a lifetime of opportunities.”
Improving gender diversity in the workforce was also a focus of the blueprint. Just 13.3% of workers in the industry are female. However, the split is not even across occupation groups. One in four professionals are female, while for machine operators it is one-in-31.
Master Builders said initiatives such as its own Women Building Australia program are “helping to dispel misperceptions about the industry, encouraging more women into construction, sharing the stories of women in the industry, supporting retention through mentoring, and nurturing career progression and business resilience”.
“These efforts are translating into more women in construction training pathways,” it said. In the year to the end of September, 4,576 women commenced a construction apprenticeship or traineeship, accounting for 8.3% of construction commencements. About 2,220 of these women commenced a trade apprenticeship – the highest number on record, and nearly four times the 20-year average to 2021 of 599.
“Master Builders encourages the government to think outside the narrow lens of gender targets for individual projects to identify options that will grow the pool of female and other under-represented workers in the industry.” It suggested incentivising medium and large employers to improve diversity across their whole workforce, not just the workers on a specific project, and including non-price criterion in tender documents that enable industry to propose options to attract more women into the building and construction industry and therefore to grow the pool of workers.
