< img src=" https://cdn.propertyupdate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/housing-choice.jpg "alt=" "> Australia loves a huge real estate
target. A million homes here, 1.2 million there- vibrant numbers splashed across press releases and podium backgrounds.
But the most recent BuildSkills Housing Labor Force Capacity Research Studymakes one thing painfully clear:
We do not have individuals to develop the homes we keep appealing.
And nowhere is that lack sharper than in local Australia.
The chart – and thanks Robert for your great work – informs the story.
While the regions are anticipated to provide approximately a third of the homes under the Real estate Accord, they’re somehow expected to supply over half of the additional employees required to construct them.
That’s a big request for places that have actually been gradually losing their 25- to 40-year-olds– the age that swings hammers, runs sites, mentors apprentices and keeps the whole device rolling.
We’re asking the wrong people, in the wrong locations, to provide the right amount of housing.
< img src=" https://cdn.propertyupdate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Regional-burden-of-Housing-accord-ambition-800x891.jpg "alt=" Regional Burden Of Real Estate Accord Aspiration" width=" 800" height=" 891"/ > The state of play: working on fumes Australia’s housing shortage didn’t begin with migration; it began with shrinking homes.
COVID pushed individuals apart – kids moved out, share houses divided, couples uncoupled. Household sizes dropped, vacancies collapsed and homelessness increased.
Now price is so extended, and migration so strong, home sizes are growing again – however vacancies haven’t budged. We’re still chronically except roofing systems.
On the supply side, things are worse. Construction costs leapt 30% throughout the pandemic and remained there. Margins remain thin. Home builders keep tipping over. And even when tasks stack up on paper, they frequently can’t discover the employees.
Building joblessness remains well listed below the national average. Job jobs are still traditionally raised.
The market doesn’t have enough labour for present output, not to mention a 40% growth.
The accord: big target, small labor force
To meet the Housing Accord, completions need to raise from around 43,000 per quarter to 60,000– and stay there for five years straight. That needs 139,300 additional workers by 2029.
BuildSkillsis blunt: even if every policy lever operates at complete strength, Australia still fails.
That deficiency is no place more intense than outside the capitals.
The regional problem: two times the discomfort, half the labor force
Regional Australia deals with structural downsides:
- smaller, ageing labour swimming pools
- weak apprenticeship pipelines
- minimal TAFE and training access
- competition from mining and agriculture
- high structure costs and long travel distances
- extreme rental shortages that make relocation hard
And sitting above all of that is the market pains: the regions keep losing their younger employees.
The very group the real estate market depends upon is thinning out year by year.
This isn’t a capacity space. It’s a capacity canyon!
Why the areas can’t provide what the Accord expects
- Residential building and construction already has no slack. Only 20% of building workers are in property work; the rest are bound in commercial, commercial and infrastructure– abilities that do not move easily.
- Expenses never returned down. The pandemic raised the building cost base, and it’s stayed elevated. That eliminates feasibility and hold-ups pipelines.
- Efficiency is stuck in the 1980s. Low tech adoption, slow approvals, fragmented supply chains, minimal standardisation.
- Demand for building and construction employees is rising everywhere. Net-zero infrastructure, defence spending, mining investment, transportation upgrades– housing is competing with all of it. Oh and the bloody Olympics too and probably another fcuking expensive white-elephant, the MacPoint Stadium in Hobart.
How to fix it? A National labor force reset
The BuildSkillsreport is clear: Australia requires a workforce reboot built around five significant levers.
The first is apprenticeships.
We require to restore the entire pipeline– payroll tax relief for employers, much better wage support via Group Training Organisations, a digitised apprenticeship system to get rid of documentation traffic jams, and a greater tax-free limit to make apprenticeships financially practical.
Mature-age employees require sped up paths; school students require direct exposure to genuine building and construction professions; and major contractors need to help drive pre-apprenticeship programs. If we don’t double apprentice throughput, the Accord goes nowhere.
Second, females need to enter the trades in far higher numbers.
Adopting the Culture Standard on federal government tasks is a start.
Add structured mid-career transition pathways and paid positioning programs, and the industry can finally access the single most significant untapped labour swimming pool in the country.
Third, migration should be smarter.
We require streamlined competent migration, labour mobility pathways so small contractors can access migrant employees, bridging programs so overseas tradies can end up being job-ready rapidly, and targeted global recruitment projects.
Migration can carry more load– but just if the system stops tripping over itself.
Fourth, productivity must improve.
Necessary continuing expert advancement, modern procurement, planning concessions for ingenious construction approaches, and shared technology precincts can unlock genuine efficiency gains.
You can’t solve a labour shortage with more labour alone.
Finally, the training system needs reform.
The VET sector should can producing job-ready tradies at scale. That means revamping construction paths, lowering literacy and numeracy hurdles, streamlining accreditation, and broadening trainer capability.
None of these levers work alone.
Pull all of them together, and you lastly get a labor force capable of satisfying the country’s real estate aspirations.
The bottom line
Australia does not just have a real estate lack, it has a building and construction workforce scarcity. Which shortage is structurally worse outside the capitals.
Assuming we have the will, we can repair planning; release more land and more significantly free up under-utilised city land and we redirect moneying away from vanity tasks to housing infrastructure.
However you can’t build homes without builders.
And building 1.2 million new homes over the next 5 years is just dream land. Additionally, the builders we have today aren’t even where we need them.
< img alt="Michael Matusik Bright" src="https://propertyupdate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/cropped-Michael-Matusik-bright-148x148.jpg" height="148" width="148"/ > About Michael Matusik Michael is director of independent residential or commercial property advisory Matusik Home Insights. He is independent, observant and to the point; has actually helped over 550 new residential advancements pertain to fruition and writes his informative Matusik Missive