Login
ISCOVER
Staff Reporter
Australia’s residential construction industry will continue to struggle, according to the Housing Industry Association’s latest report.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Looking for more benefits? Become a Premium Member.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
Looking for more benefits? Become a Premium Member.
The HIA Trades Report, indicates a relatively high availability of skilled labour continued into the first quarter of 2013, while developments in trade rates were benign.
“Skilled trades people continue to operate in weak conditions – residential construction experienced declining activity in 2012 and while there are signs of a recovery in 2013, it is from a very low starting point,” HIA economist Diwa Hopkins said.
“An adequate provision of skilled labour will be a crucial ingredient to a recovery in new home building that is of the magnitude required by Australia’s long-term housing needs.
“A prolonged period of inadequate residential construction activity is not conducive to attracting new skilled labour into the industry, and this may undermine the longer term capacity of the industry to meet recovering demand. Improved support now for training will play an important role in mitigating this risk.”
The HIA Trade Availability Index eased slightly from 0.22 at the end of 2012 to 0.19 in the March quarter this year, meaning that trades were still in moderate oversupply (readings greater than 0.0 indicate oversupply).
The current soft conditions in the residential construction industry are also reflected in the relatively mild improvement the HIA Trade Prices Index.
The Index increased by 2.7 per cent in the March 2013 quarter, off a very low base, to register an annual growth rate of 1.1 per cent.
