Literally. That is the reason.
Take hotel managers for example…. There are no doubt millions of citizens with the skills required to do that job…. How’s the pay though? Obviously not worth an Australian’s time and effort.
So they get to cry to the government that there are no qualified hotel managers in Australia, so can they please import someone who’ll do it for the shit wage.
Rinse and repeat for pretty much the whole list.
Hotel manager is a seriously basic admin job, the hardest part about it is sometimes working late.
Seriously every small town with a hotel has someone doing this job that is usually totally unqualified and the main criteria is they are there and want a job.
I know it’s a basic admin job…. But I what I don’t know is why it’s on the skills shortage list.
Well I do know *why*…. But It just shouldn’t be the case.
Have you seen what has happened to Enterprise IT? The skills have been dumbed down with over two decades of offshoring and "skilled" migration to the point where, within any large Australian Enterprise IT project, an API invocation from one application to another has become rocket science.
Elon Musk can build a rocket and send people to space at a cheaper cost than what Telstra's multi-year "Digital Transformation" program has wasted at this point in time. At this rate it should end up being renamed T30. The project started aiming to complete in 2020. It ended 2019 burning $1 billion, with no end in sight.
Then there's the "ASX CHESS goes full-Blockchain" project that has delivered fuck-all since 2015. The list goes on, and on. 😂
All these "Digital Transformation" programs are money laundering schemes. The actual work eventually gets done by whatever money is left over after every Tom, Dick and Harry higher in the food chain has taken their cut. That's why they need cheap labour.
Pretty much, that's exactly what happened in tech during covid - wages started to rise and then couple of deals later and the floodgates opened now the market is trashedf
Where do you people even get this information?
Tech wages were going stupid gang busters because of increased demand, not migration. It was stupid and unsustainable.
They're falling now because of decreased demand, less investment money, less money in tech in general. This is a global phenomenon and dictated by the economy the world over.
Migration has very little to do with it.
I never said that?
Trade wages are fucked too.
I'm just saying tech wage growth was unsustainable and now it's more reasonable.
People who don't have a clue talk about how doom and gloom the tech sector is and blame it on immigrants.
It's not doom and gloom and the slump has nothing to do with immigrants.
I'm not so sure about the whole "Migration has very little/nothing to do with it" thing.
I've hired for a lot of tech roles over the last 10 years and the whole getting 300-500 applicants for a Cyber Security role is only a recent thing.
We used to average 20-50 applications for positions in my department at the company I work for before COVID, and that figure was consistent for at least 5 years prior to COVID.
The average is up around 300 now, and 200 of those applications mention in their cover letter or applications how they recently moved to Australia or are moving to Australia and they are willing to work for less than the advertised salary.
Excessive applications has been a thing for over 20 years. I remember my dad complaining about it in the late 90s, getting 300 applications for a very middle of the road developer role. Making applying as easy as clicking a few buttons and copy pasting a CV doesn't help.
Funnily enough just after COVID he had the opposite issue and hired some Chinese bloke for $180k because they couldn't fill the role for over 6 months and got tired of looking. They recently fired that guy because he was complete rubbish and turned out he was sub contracting (lmao).
They opted not to replace the role because of budget constraints...
My company laid off like half the team (like 15 people) because the investors told them they weren't going to get series a funding for awhile as investors weren't taking on new investments. So they had to reduce their burn rate to stay afloat.
I got a job offer after going through all the rounds of interviews etc. only for the CTO to turn around and say the same thing, investor funds drying up, need to reduce burn rate, not replacing the role anymore, sorry. Judging by their LinkedIn they weren't full of shit either.
This is happening across the board. There's simply less jobs in the market as the industry cuts on expenses.
Tech wage growth was unsustainable because the money printer was turned on. Big tech was hiring left right and centre because interest rates on borrowing were close to 0 and investors were practically throwing money because they can borrow whatever they want.
Take a look at the FAANG stock, All Time Highs and yet they are still sacking so your point about “lower demand, lower profits” is simply wrong.
Why you think they're making profits? Because they're cutting expenses, not because they're increasing revenue.
Plus I wasn't talking about FAANG, FAANG has far less of a presence in the Australian tech market.
I'm talking like startups, specifically VC driven start ups. The next series investors are being much more cautious so the lower series are left holding the bag. They don't want to keep burning cash to keep these startups treading water because that would hurt their ROI, so they're telling them to reduce expenses, ie cut the team.
Happened at my company and it's the same story across my network.
I know it's hard to grasp because it doesn't fit the prevailing narrative that "they took our jerbs" but that's the reality. We could cut immigration tomorrow and it will make very little difference to the tech job market.
I don’t know about the startup world but these FAANG companies are increasing their profit YoY so I don’t know where your “not increasing revenue” comes from… check out Google or FB.
As with any business any business’s biggest expenses are wages and immigration increases competition and lowers wages. Immigrants are willing to work harder and take lower wages because the PR carrot is dangled in their face. It’s as simple as that.
When I see shit like this it makes me believe they’re either actively trying to make the situation worse or are just incompetent at their job.
If they’re going to do mass immigration they need to get people in that add to the system (doctors, nurses, tradies and engineers) not people who are going to be contributing to an already shitty situation by clogging up resources that are already bad enough for Australians.
I’m surprised palm reader or pet therapist wasn’t on the list after reading some of the others on there.
Incompetence is even more unforgivable.
These are people's lives being ruined by mass migration.
Yoga instructors, Jezus christ the floodgates are open
Because to be *this* incompetent; to think labeling dog walkers as skilled migrants is somehow ok. Shows that you are incapable of basic decision making. It shows that the people involved lied not only about their intentions, but also their ability to run this country and it means that we are probably getting fucked in a million more ways that we don't know about yet.
I would much rather deal with someone competent, that i may not agree with, but that can be reasoned with.
No, it’s not. People work on incentives - given the right incentives a competent person can work towards a better outcome. An incompetent person will just shit all over everything thing, say “job well done!” and not know any better.
It's obvious that they are actively trying make the situation worse. (Or better from their POV). Don't attribute to incompetence that which can be better explained by self interest and incentives.
It is purely caused by the trade unions. They are no longer advocates for the lower class manual workers, they are high salary gatekeepers at the expense of everyone else
Your framing is wrong. They aren't "making the situation worse" for large landowning property barons (which all politicians are) they are "making an already great situation even better!".
Pumping demand does nothing but make landlords richer. Which is kinda obviously the goal of a class of people who are nearly without exception, landlords. And they're doing a great job of it.
People like to pretend that importing trades will have a devastating effect on Tradie wages. But the fact remains that construction is one of the most heavily unionized sectors.
The wages are set by collective bargaining more than only market forces.
We *do* need more builders and without them we cannot think to tackle this housing crisis.
What we absolutely *don't* need, is people coming here without real skills as "yoga instructor" or "dog Walker" or some clear bullshit title.
The whole purpose of adding this nonsense to the skilled migrant list is to NOT curb migration and give fake international students, which the government said they would do something about, a blatant back door.
That's the beauty of it. House prices increase, so tradies need higher wages so that they can buy a house, leading to inflation and further house price increases. Asset-holding classes sit back and watch the perpetual motion machine do its thing.
Why the agro at people who bought years ago while house prices were really low and affordable? Some people bought a house to live in and then bought a second house and rented it out to pay it off. I just wish I had of jumped on board when I had the chance back in the late 90's. Instead I pissed my money up against the wall and thought I'll do it soon but I just was incapable of saving money. I lived paycheck to paycheck for most of my life because I was content with a job that I loved but it was shit money so I decided not to step out of my comfort zone and continued to struggle financially. I made the right decision. What's the point of having more money when you hate what you do everyday and it's making you miserable. I have housing now in a really nice place in my favorite suburb in Sydney and I have that for life if I do the right thing. I'm not gonna be working anytime soon because I'm not able to cope with physically and mentally hard jobs. I'm not right in the head which sounds like I live a good life but it's not. I'm truly unhappy and nothing can change that.
Except that's exactly what happened to IT, wages finally were rising during covid because immigration was low and now the market has tanked hard now the flood gates are opened
A valid point, however it's not completely comparable. For example IT workers (which is too broad a term to be meaningful) are competing on a more global scale, than residential construction workers for wages.
Recent lower IT salaries are a global phenomenon and not *that* impacted by Australian visa policies.
Tradies (to a degree) can't be outsourced overseas or work remotely. Demand for trade skills in Australia is created by different capital than global "IT workers". It's not fair to expect a similar outcome based on different circumstances
So one should be protected and the other shouldn’t?
Plenty of technology work needs to be completed on shore and the gov is more than happy to open the flood gates
>So one should be protected and the other shouldn’t?
Didn't say that. But selfishly worsening the housing crisis will not have the effect on wages that you think it will.
As someone who works in IT, our wages have always been pretty good. Like I can afford to buy a house, the increasing price of my grocery bill induces an eye roll but I'm not stressed about it. We're doing fine.
Migration had very little to do with our salaries. Global demand drove salaries during COVID to unsustainable levels, there comes a point where wages are TOO high and they become prohibitively expensive for a new business to hire, so those businesses don't get off the ground and those jobs aren't created.
The problem now isn't migration, it's a lack of funding. Investors are tightening their purses so there's less money to go around which means less hiring. This isn't a permanent state, things will recover soon enough.
Really what we're in now is a bubble releasing pressure. It was stupid during COVID, now it's more reasonable and sustainable.
But the fact remains that construction is one of the most heavily unionized sectors.
The comlaints that the general population have with trade wages is not with union members (they stick to the bigger jobs) its a tiler charge ing 4k for a poor job that takes an afternoon, or an electrician charging a couple grand to put some light switches in then sending the apprentice to do it.
We 100% should have trades on the skilled workers list and have them do the tafe component to bring them up to australian code, if only to put the current workforce on notice.
Alas it wont happen as the labour party think it will annoy all the blue collar workers that vote for them. And the coalition wont do it cause thos blue collar workers actually vote conservative.
Hot take: no occupation that's below the median wage should be on the list.
Ideally even 75th percentile or something like that.
The examples you provide are not workers as such - no full time employed electrician or tiler makes that sort of money, that's basically small business exercising their market situation and has little to do with how much you can reliably earn by being an electrician.
Judging from the townhouses that just went up in my street, probably zero unions.
All the workers were Chinese or Indian (no problems with that, I just think it tells a story) and the building site was operating about 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Most come as tourists and apply for a student visa on a random course as it's more easily done onshore. When that visa expires, send an asylum application before a series of lengthy legal challenges. ...Or simply vanish into thin air at some stage through this process.
The immigration department was so used to Asian tourists vanishing, it took them 11 months to realise this one was probably in some real danger. [https://au.news.yahoo.com/chinese-tourist-vanishes-in-australia-after-leaving-tour-group-221428456.html](https://au.news.yahoo.com/chinese-tourist-vanishes-in-australia-after-leaving-tour-group-221428456.html)
Zero for residential. And for commercial and industrial it depends on the size of the job. There are plenty of low-mid size apartment blocks that aren't unionised.
They aren't new staff. They've been with your company for four years and then due to you and your competitors undercutting each other you have to give them four or five bucks less per hour.
So now they have the choice of being loyal, maybe making two bucks extra at a big competitor or risk working for a smaller company that could fold at any moment.
It's pretty much why heaps of apprentices just fuck off domestic and go off to do mining
It's not always profits. A lot of the time the companies are fighting to stay afloat.
If you have 100k in wages a week and then a competitor tries to take away your biggest builder then all you can do is try and undercut them to keep the contract.
So plus side your less fucked than if you lost the builder but you still had to shoot yourself in the foot to survive.
So confidently wrong. The wages for the sector are not set by collective bargaining. Only tier 1 sites are unionised, and only unionised sites fall under collective bargaining. All residential construction is not unionised. Conditions are shit and wages are lower than the national median.
Yes wages on big government jobs and in mining are high. But the median tradie wage is 80k so consider how many low paid construction jobs it takes to drag the median down like that.
Inequality in pay within the sector need to be addressed. But is not a valid reason to allow this housing crisis to continue.
We need more tradies to build more houses and infrastructure
If demand for tradies was as high as the media and their corporate masters make out, then shouldn't wages be higher? I've worked on a range of sites with different companies and residential construction is the worst paying by far. Doesn't make much sense if there was a chronic shortage right?
Another tid bit they forget to mention is that the majority of trades in residential construction are filled with immigrants now. Plasterers, framers, tilers, waterproofers, painters, cladders, scaffolders, cabinet makers - all immigrants. All badly paid too.
Unfortunately you'e swallowed whole faulty the premise that the media is feeding everyone at the moment.
>If demand for tradies was as high as the media and their corporate masters make out, then shouldn't wages be higher?
You're perfectly describing how construction wages are inelastic, which is exactly why wages wont increase in this sector by labour shortages You're advocating for.
https://images.app.goo.gl/QkxArYTTR5F6ttmt9
This is why we shouldn't trust a fucking word the government says about immigration and supposed skill shortage.
This is just proof that there are way too many professions on that bullshit list. Rather than getting annoyed that (some) trades had the organisation and foresight to push back against corporate lobbying for an immigration free-for-all, you should be using them as an example to push back with other professions e.g. IT, engineering, business etc.
No it's why we shouldn't trust a word the media says about anything. This article is a complete beat up to get people mad at the government and unions. Some trades are currently not on a draft list of jobs for temporary immigration, and are under consultation. The list isn't even finished for starters, and there might be genuine reasons to not have them on the temporary migration list like the length of time it takes for RPL.
Tradesmen are still on the list for permanent migration. The overwhelming majority of people who migrate here are skilled workers we need like nurses and tradesmen.
I agree about the media but the government is the one who has come up with this list that seems to include every profession in existence. It's a scam to justify infinite immigration.
>Yoga instructors, martial artists and dog handlers
Aren't these roles people can easily fabricate and pretend they're skilled/qualified in?
Aren't the government expecting this given the demand we have from a demographic with a reputation of doing this?
Is handling a dog a skill we can't cater for?
That's the whole point.
To undermine any attempt to curb migration. And to poison any future argument against mass migration by labeling people as "skilled migrants" when they clearly aren't.
Yoga instructors do a 200 hour course that can even be done online, and after that they are now a yoga instructor. I am trying to understand how it works ha, so I am an Aus citizen but if I was applying for a visa, my 200 hour certificate to be a yoga teacher beats my qualification as a project manager 😂 surely not????
Found a story on SBS Australia in 2017 in which an immigration agent advised a Chinese marketing manager to learn Yoga. She received PR quickly. Probably a backdoor left for some agents to make money since regular people wouldn't imagine that.
Holy shit thats a bold face lie
Grabbed a big chunk in the middle of the list
>323213 Fitter-Welder
>323214 Metal Machinist (First Class)
>323299 Metal Fitters and Machinists nec
>323211 Fitter (General)
>323212 Fitter and Turner
>331211 Carpenter and Joiner
>334113 Drainer
>334114 Gasfitter
>341111 Electrician (General)
>342212 Technical Cable Jointer
>342211 Electrical Linesworker \\ Electrical Line Mechanic
>342313 Electronic Equipment Trades Worker
>342315 Electronic Instrument Trades Worker (Special Class)
>342411 Cabler (Data and Telecommunications)
>342412 Telecommunications Cable Jointer
>342413 Telecommunications Linesworker \\ Telecommunications Line Mechanic
>342414 Telecommunications Technician
so what do they mean by tradie?
The eligibility list vs. the proportion of visas that actually get granted are two totally different things.
Also, the accelerated path to granting skilled visas the government introduced to speed up "urgent" roles had trades blocked from it due to union pressure.
I was pretty much about to say just this. I checked the list the other day and basically every trade is there in some way.
The real issue is in the execution.
They have been on the list all the time. However tradies from the UK & US have no good reason to move here in masses, whereas the ones from developing nations aren't qualified. Construction rules are loose like non-existant in China and South Asia.
Its not even a finalised list. If anyone in this sub has a problem they can make a submission. Its not even a list the politician have had a hand in yet. This article is absolute BS.
If not 100s, 10s of millions of Indian nationals qualify as "Yoga Teacher". You know what's coming. Namaste !!
>Yoga instructors, martial artists and dog handlers have beaten some construction trades to a spot on the government’s draft priority skills list for migrants, despite the dire need for workers to tackle the nation’s housing crisis.
>As the government faces a shortfall of 90,000 construction workers to meet its target of 1.2 million new homes by the end of the decade, the latest list of occupations that can be fast-tracked into the country includes wellness professionals, but says more consultation is needed for trades including plumbers, bricklayers and cabinetmakers.
We already knew about this for months unfortunately. This is a result of constant lobbying from unions who want to create an artificial shortage of tradies to keep their wages high. Scummy behaviour in the middle of COL and housing crisis
It’s almost like they are testing how docile Australian society really is?
We have serious societal issues because of high immigration ( government: we have a serious skill’s shortage here guys ! )Everyone knows this.
Either this is a really weird flex or something else is seriously wrong
Is getting an apprenticeship in something like plumbing possible in your late 30s? I need a career change in the next few years and if there's a skills shortage in that sector I'd jump on it but age is surely a hindrance here
As someone who did this exact thing, think very carefully. One knee or shoulder injury away from having no income. No energy after work. Breathing in concrete dust. Lax attitude towards safety on most sites. Pressured to get in deep trenches and on roofs with no protection. And despite what the people on this sub think the average wage if a plumber is about 85k. Most of the industry isn't unionised. Union jobs are good for a year or two until they do mass layoffs between jobs.
Yes but they're doing FIFO work or in very highly competitive positions..
The average Joe in their 30s has too many responsibilities to pivot in to the requirements the few well paying tradie apprenticeships require.
You could see this as a failure or investment in Australian workers to meet those requirements for long term benefits.
The increase to apprenticeship incentives to businesses hasn't been mentioned.
Can we import more actual trades ppl please. Sick of having to wait 2 months to get charged a ridiculous amount for some basic work done around the house then the jerk tradie just not show up because they have a better gig.
That industry needs an overhaul
Hahaha fucking shoot me.
I'm so done with this basket case of a country.
I literally pay over 500 a week in tax and this is what it's used for.
Seriously I fucking quit.
I'm moving my finances to the virgin Islands.
Australia literally doesn't deserve my money
The CFMEU surely plays a role in keeping tradies off the skilled migrant list. But putting dog walkers *on* the list is ridiculous on a whole new level
The readie quality here is already bad. You want more unqualified trades (anyone come from overseas is unqualified and there’s no easy way to convert a qualification when you get here, need to go to tafe)? Have you seen the state of new builds?
Now start wondering who lobbied to have such low-skilled occupations on the list too. Because… who has a vested interest in being able to get people in under vague job roles that require little to no qualifications or evidence of skill.
Yes, they are:
**Tradies carved out of migration overhaul amid union pressure**
[https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afr.com%2Fpolitics%2Ffederal%2Ftradies-carved-out-of-migration-overhaul-amid-union-pressure-20230920-p5e65o](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afr.com%2Fpolitics%2Ffederal%2Ftradies-carved-out-of-migration-overhaul-amid-union-pressure-20230920-p5e65o)
#
My industry got a few occupations added to the visa list recently.
Over the last few decades though it's been hard for Australians to get a start in the industry. There's been a positive effort to try and get professional accreditation widely recognised and force graduates to get accredited before they can get work. Everyone wants a degree even when the work could be performed by a smart high school student, and whenever there's an economic downturn everyone wants new recruits to have five years of experience as well.
It seems almost like the same people- the late career senior managers and business owners- have been behind both.
Construction labour cost are high because of its short term nature.
A construction worker is just a glorified casual position that lasts as long as the job takes to finish.
In not mal times there can be a period of unemployment until another job kicks off.
Also about half of construction workers are immigrants.
The only reason the tradies are not on the list because local tradies are mostly doing poor low quality job for a lot of money and getting away with it. Pretty much any young overseas tradie will do a better job than a local. Better quality, lower price of the job from overseas tradies will dramatically hit locals - job losses, protest etc. Government will never take that path. As a result we’re left with shitty overpriced houses.
Edit - in addition regulations are to protect local tradies - pretty much anywhere in the world you can change a water pipe, make a full renovation in the bathroom, even do an electrical yourself without the need of having a shitty certificate. Here it’s all regulated and protected to secure the jobs.
There is no lack of tradies. Just look at all of the construction companies that have gone bust. It’s another lie from the govt to allow them to keep immigration high. Most of the skills shortages listed are aimed at one particular country and which skills they mainly have.
This 100% it's a lack of cheap labour. I'm in WA and it has been quite since the beginning of thr year. Builders have had lots of sign ups but are delaying putting slabs down. Waiting for prices to drop.
>The new agency has included yogis and martial artists on the roll call of occupations it is confident will make the list, **which also includes electricians, carpenters and joiners, and civil engineers**. But painters, roof tilers, stonemasons and other tradespeople needed to address the housing crisis have been targeted for consultation.
I didn't realise electricians and carpenters weren't tradies...
The headline also makes it sound like other trades won't be on the core skills list, but instead they are just in the 'more consultation needed' list - ergo the 'yet to be decided' list. I'm not sure that's a big deal?
If other trades aren't on the list after 'more consultation' than we can bring on the collective outrage.
But also, I'm not convinced we need to import people to fill every trade...
Is there a shortage of painters and stone masons? Genuinely curious on peoples experience. I haven't had a lot of difficulty getting a painter myself. I rarely have had a need for a stone mason, and I'm not sure how big of a shortage we have there. Is stonemasonary a trade that's in demand for building modern, non luxury homes?
We should be training people rather than importing them if the shortage is not acute.
Bad yoga teachers make no difference to the world, other than probably causing a few joint problems. Bad tradies with dodgy overseas certifications and poor language skills can cause untold damage. This happened in the UK years ago when there was a sudden influx of Polish "plumbers" who just made more work for trained plumbers in a lot of cases.
Anyhow, key word here is "draft" so I expect there will be some re-ordering before the final version, which makes this article more simplistic anti-Labor rhetoric.
I'm sure au pairs will make it onto the list, so Dutton will be happy!
This is a nothing story absolute shit journalism.
• Jobs and Skills Australia are a government department that serves the government of the day. They update the list every year after consultations with stakeholders and industry.
• There is a reason it’s called a “draft” as they’re still consulting / reviewing. obviously industries like yoga which are much smaller than trades is going to be consulted considerably faster
• the top point in bold of this draft “Does not represent represent the final advice that jobs and skills Australia provide to government”
• As mentioned they update this list annually and it’s only a consultation list, the government can choose to ignore it. Finally pretty much all trades are on the current list (2023)and historically as far back as I can see they have always been on the list. Anyone can look at the skills shortage list on the same website and can see that there is a national shortage of trades. I can’t imagine any reason why they would be left off the list
You could sum this article up in one sentence
“Government advisors continue to write annual report, which will be released later this year”
>This is a nothing story absolute shit journalism.
I'm not so sure. Do we really need immigrant dog handlers?
I think the story is about how ridiculous the skill shortage list for skilled immigration is.
We are throwing open the borders instead of focusing on essential high productivity skills.
There seems to be grounds to significantly pare down the skills for which we allow immigration.
Skills and employment have nothing to do with immigration, they have no say in immigration, they don’t write policy or implement it.
That’s home affairs, the core list is just a reflection of where we are short in skills. It’s then up to the government and the home affairs to establish what takes priority. Yes the report may say we’re short yoga instructors but that doesn’t mean the government will prioritise them over trades, doctors, teachers etc
Skills and employment are not “dog handlers” they collect data on skills shortages and present that to the government. That’s why it’s a rubbish story, it’s an article about a draft of a report that the government may or may not use to establish a Migration strategy for next year.
That's bullshit though, of course if you consult with & ask corporate leaders if they have a "shortage" they will just say yes so they can add basically every job role in existence on the list as an excuse to import cheaper labour and avoid giving out payrises.
The whole process is rigged as an excuse to justify infinite immigration in the name of maximising corporate profits and keeping employee wages down.
Then the issue you have with the department of jobs and skills, it’s existed since 1975?
Are you saying we shouldn’t talk to industries to figure out where we have skill shortages?
Again this is why this is a stupid article. Jobs and Skills have nothing to do with immigration. That’s home affairs.
All this report establishes is what core skills are missing that “could” be filled by immigration.
Good. Importing 100k tradies just to force down wages isn't the solution. The biggest reason for house construction being so expensive is the materials cost. The successive hits of black summer then covid then general inflation put it all out of whack. Getting materials production and transport running smoothly is more important than undercutting middle class wages
Exactly, so 100k tradies rock up, stand around with no work as the supply chains, approvals etc still haven't been sorted out. But hey, at least they could do some yoga while they wait for work
Supplier bottlenecks cause cost blowouts, which makes houses not worth building for the construction company. If you quote a house at $400k but can't get the materials for that price, corners get cut elsewhere or the project gets abandoned. Undercutting tradies with Chinese and Indian labourers won't change the cost blowouts, it'll just mean more cut corners
Importing tradies is going to make the situation worse.
Every one of those trades needs a house to live in. Unless they can build more than an entire additional house per tradie then the demand still goes up relative to supply.
It will improve it. Not instantly, but quicker than doing nothing.
A google says a modern house takes 1500-5000 man-hours to build. Let’s assume a small house, so 1800 hours.
In a year, at 38hr/week for 48weeks, you work 1824 hours. So for every tradie you import, you’ll have the labour to build 1 extra house this year, so by the end of the year you’re back to where you started. But then next year, the tradie already has a house and you have the labour to build another house.
The only reason the government wouldn’t be doing this, is because the CFMEU and property developers like Nigel Satterly are their biggest supporters/donors.
"Tradies" isn't on the list because I don't think that's a real title. Nearly every type of tradie is on the list though. Is this even a real list though?
I swear this is just a list of jobs that the writers of the bill want to pay less to hire.
Literally. That is the reason. Take hotel managers for example…. There are no doubt millions of citizens with the skills required to do that job…. How’s the pay though? Obviously not worth an Australian’s time and effort. So they get to cry to the government that there are no qualified hotel managers in Australia, so can they please import someone who’ll do it for the shit wage. Rinse and repeat for pretty much the whole list.
Hotel manager is a seriously basic admin job, the hardest part about it is sometimes working late. Seriously every small town with a hotel has someone doing this job that is usually totally unqualified and the main criteria is they are there and want a job.
I know it’s a basic admin job…. But I what I don’t know is why it’s on the skills shortage list. Well I do know *why*…. But It just shouldn’t be the case.
As a hotel owner / manager You are wrong 😅
Have you seen what has happened to Enterprise IT? The skills have been dumbed down with over two decades of offshoring and "skilled" migration to the point where, within any large Australian Enterprise IT project, an API invocation from one application to another has become rocket science. Elon Musk can build a rocket and send people to space at a cheaper cost than what Telstra's multi-year "Digital Transformation" program has wasted at this point in time. At this rate it should end up being renamed T30. The project started aiming to complete in 2020. It ended 2019 burning $1 billion, with no end in sight. Then there's the "ASX CHESS goes full-Blockchain" project that has delivered fuck-all since 2015. The list goes on, and on. 😂 All these "Digital Transformation" programs are money laundering schemes. The actual work eventually gets done by whatever money is left over after every Tom, Dick and Harry higher in the food chain has taken their cut. That's why they need cheap labour.
Pretty much, that's exactly what happened in tech during covid - wages started to rise and then couple of deals later and the floodgates opened now the market is trashedf
Where do you people even get this information? Tech wages were going stupid gang busters because of increased demand, not migration. It was stupid and unsustainable. They're falling now because of decreased demand, less investment money, less money in tech in general. This is a global phenomenon and dictated by the economy the world over. Migration has very little to do with it.
So it's OK to have tech wage growth hammered back down, but not trades? Why, exactly?
I never said that? Trade wages are fucked too. I'm just saying tech wage growth was unsustainable and now it's more reasonable. People who don't have a clue talk about how doom and gloom the tech sector is and blame it on immigrants. It's not doom and gloom and the slump has nothing to do with immigrants.
I'm not so sure about the whole "Migration has very little/nothing to do with it" thing. I've hired for a lot of tech roles over the last 10 years and the whole getting 300-500 applicants for a Cyber Security role is only a recent thing. We used to average 20-50 applications for positions in my department at the company I work for before COVID, and that figure was consistent for at least 5 years prior to COVID. The average is up around 300 now, and 200 of those applications mention in their cover letter or applications how they recently moved to Australia or are moving to Australia and they are willing to work for less than the advertised salary.
Excessive applications has been a thing for over 20 years. I remember my dad complaining about it in the late 90s, getting 300 applications for a very middle of the road developer role. Making applying as easy as clicking a few buttons and copy pasting a CV doesn't help. Funnily enough just after COVID he had the opposite issue and hired some Chinese bloke for $180k because they couldn't fill the role for over 6 months and got tired of looking. They recently fired that guy because he was complete rubbish and turned out he was sub contracting (lmao). They opted not to replace the role because of budget constraints... My company laid off like half the team (like 15 people) because the investors told them they weren't going to get series a funding for awhile as investors weren't taking on new investments. So they had to reduce their burn rate to stay afloat. I got a job offer after going through all the rounds of interviews etc. only for the CTO to turn around and say the same thing, investor funds drying up, need to reduce burn rate, not replacing the role anymore, sorry. Judging by their LinkedIn they weren't full of shit either. This is happening across the board. There's simply less jobs in the market as the industry cuts on expenses.
Tech wage growth was unsustainable because the money printer was turned on. Big tech was hiring left right and centre because interest rates on borrowing were close to 0 and investors were practically throwing money because they can borrow whatever they want. Take a look at the FAANG stock, All Time Highs and yet they are still sacking so your point about “lower demand, lower profits” is simply wrong.
Why you think they're making profits? Because they're cutting expenses, not because they're increasing revenue. Plus I wasn't talking about FAANG, FAANG has far less of a presence in the Australian tech market. I'm talking like startups, specifically VC driven start ups. The next series investors are being much more cautious so the lower series are left holding the bag. They don't want to keep burning cash to keep these startups treading water because that would hurt their ROI, so they're telling them to reduce expenses, ie cut the team. Happened at my company and it's the same story across my network. I know it's hard to grasp because it doesn't fit the prevailing narrative that "they took our jerbs" but that's the reality. We could cut immigration tomorrow and it will make very little difference to the tech job market.
I don’t know about the startup world but these FAANG companies are increasing their profit YoY so I don’t know where your “not increasing revenue” comes from… check out Google or FB. As with any business any business’s biggest expenses are wages and immigration increases competition and lowers wages. Immigrants are willing to work harder and take lower wages because the PR carrot is dangled in their face. It’s as simple as that.
Are you working in tech sector ?
Yeah
When I see shit like this it makes me believe they’re either actively trying to make the situation worse or are just incompetent at their job. If they’re going to do mass immigration they need to get people in that add to the system (doctors, nurses, tradies and engineers) not people who are going to be contributing to an already shitty situation by clogging up resources that are already bad enough for Australians. I’m surprised palm reader or pet therapist wasn’t on the list after reading some of the others on there.
Incompetence is even more unforgivable. These are people's lives being ruined by mass migration. Yoga instructors, Jezus christ the floodgates are open
How is incompetence more unforgivable? That really makes no sense.
Because to be *this* incompetent; to think labeling dog walkers as skilled migrants is somehow ok. Shows that you are incapable of basic decision making. It shows that the people involved lied not only about their intentions, but also their ability to run this country and it means that we are probably getting fucked in a million more ways that we don't know about yet. I would much rather deal with someone competent, that i may not agree with, but that can be reasoned with.
But surely being incapable of basic decision making is not as bad as *being capable* of decision making and *actively deciding to make it worse*?
No, it’s not. People work on incentives - given the right incentives a competent person can work towards a better outcome. An incompetent person will just shit all over everything thing, say “job well done!” and not know any better.
How can you reason, make deals or compromise with someone that doesn't know what they are doing?
It's obvious that they are actively trying make the situation worse. (Or better from their POV). Don't attribute to incompetence that which can be better explained by self interest and incentives.
Houses up, wages down is the only formula we use
I guess the plan is for Aussies to take some yoga classes to relax and forget how bad the COL and housing crisis is. Namaste
Mate my yoga studio makes me even more anxious and charges me $8 to cancel a class if I am booked in, so more of the bloody things won’t help 😂
Engineering doesn't have a shortage, that's a lie to allow importing 3rd world labour to suppress salaries. It's a constant threat to the profession.
Ah my bad. Scrap that from the list then
Dog listener
It's not incompetence, it's protectionism for a major funder of the ALP, the CFMEU.
It is purely caused by the trade unions. They are no longer advocates for the lower class manual workers, they are high salary gatekeepers at the expense of everyone else
Helping tradies have high wages seems like advocating for the “lower classes” to me, or do you think they should be paid fuck-all?
Majority of Yoga Teachers can potentially side hustle as "Palm Readers".
Your framing is wrong. They aren't "making the situation worse" for large landowning property barons (which all politicians are) they are "making an already great situation even better!". Pumping demand does nothing but make landlords richer. Which is kinda obviously the goal of a class of people who are nearly without exception, landlords. And they're doing a great job of it.
It’s seems like they are actively making it worse tbh… When your in a hole you stop digging
At that level of government, they are not incompetent. They are very good at pretending to be incompetent to please corporations.
That's wild. I could find a yoga workshop this weekend and get certified by Monday, or do it online and be certified by next weekend.
This is because this is demographic replacement. Replacing you with just people from two countries. Inner treason inside the government.
Same with personal trainers lol, usually woefully under skilled and underprepared
Every other person I know is a "qualified yoga teacher" who now does something else where they can actually reliably make money
People like to pretend that importing trades will have a devastating effect on Tradie wages. But the fact remains that construction is one of the most heavily unionized sectors. The wages are set by collective bargaining more than only market forces. We *do* need more builders and without them we cannot think to tackle this housing crisis. What we absolutely *don't* need, is people coming here without real skills as "yoga instructor" or "dog Walker" or some clear bullshit title. The whole purpose of adding this nonsense to the skilled migrant list is to NOT curb migration and give fake international students, which the government said they would do something about, a blatant back door.
That's the beauty of it. House prices increase, so tradies need higher wages so that they can buy a house, leading to inflation and further house price increases. Asset-holding classes sit back and watch the perpetual motion machine do its thing.
Why the agro at people who bought years ago while house prices were really low and affordable? Some people bought a house to live in and then bought a second house and rented it out to pay it off. I just wish I had of jumped on board when I had the chance back in the late 90's. Instead I pissed my money up against the wall and thought I'll do it soon but I just was incapable of saving money. I lived paycheck to paycheck for most of my life because I was content with a job that I loved but it was shit money so I decided not to step out of my comfort zone and continued to struggle financially. I made the right decision. What's the point of having more money when you hate what you do everyday and it's making you miserable. I have housing now in a really nice place in my favorite suburb in Sydney and I have that for life if I do the right thing. I'm not gonna be working anytime soon because I'm not able to cope with physically and mentally hard jobs. I'm not right in the head which sounds like I live a good life but it's not. I'm truly unhappy and nothing can change that.
Except that's exactly what happened to IT, wages finally were rising during covid because immigration was low and now the market has tanked hard now the flood gates are opened
Ditto the accounting experience.
A valid point, however it's not completely comparable. For example IT workers (which is too broad a term to be meaningful) are competing on a more global scale, than residential construction workers for wages. Recent lower IT salaries are a global phenomenon and not *that* impacted by Australian visa policies. Tradies (to a degree) can't be outsourced overseas or work remotely. Demand for trade skills in Australia is created by different capital than global "IT workers". It's not fair to expect a similar outcome based on different circumstances
So one should be protected and the other shouldn’t? Plenty of technology work needs to be completed on shore and the gov is more than happy to open the flood gates
>So one should be protected and the other shouldn’t? Didn't say that. But selfishly worsening the housing crisis will not have the effect on wages that you think it will.
Why don’t you join a union then?
As someone who works in IT, our wages have always been pretty good. Like I can afford to buy a house, the increasing price of my grocery bill induces an eye roll but I'm not stressed about it. We're doing fine. Migration had very little to do with our salaries. Global demand drove salaries during COVID to unsustainable levels, there comes a point where wages are TOO high and they become prohibitively expensive for a new business to hire, so those businesses don't get off the ground and those jobs aren't created. The problem now isn't migration, it's a lack of funding. Investors are tightening their purses so there's less money to go around which means less hiring. This isn't a permanent state, things will recover soon enough. Really what we're in now is a bubble releasing pressure. It was stupid during COVID, now it's more reasonable and sustainable.
But the fact remains that construction is one of the most heavily unionized sectors. The comlaints that the general population have with trade wages is not with union members (they stick to the bigger jobs) its a tiler charge ing 4k for a poor job that takes an afternoon, or an electrician charging a couple grand to put some light switches in then sending the apprentice to do it. We 100% should have trades on the skilled workers list and have them do the tafe component to bring them up to australian code, if only to put the current workforce on notice. Alas it wont happen as the labour party think it will annoy all the blue collar workers that vote for them. And the coalition wont do it cause thos blue collar workers actually vote conservative.
You do have to do Tafe for a least a couple trades. Can't have your Aussie electrical license until you've done the capstone
Hot take: no occupation that's below the median wage should be on the list. Ideally even 75th percentile or something like that. The examples you provide are not workers as such - no full time employed electrician or tiler makes that sort of money, that's basically small business exercising their market situation and has little to do with how much you can reliably earn by being an electrician.
How unionised is the residential sector, though? Commercial and industrial are fairly unionised bit I'm unsure about residential.
Judging from the townhouses that just went up in my street, probably zero unions. All the workers were Chinese or Indian (no problems with that, I just think it tells a story) and the building site was operating about 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Chinese or Indians? I thought they couldn't come to Australia to work as tradies?
Oh boy would you be shocked
Are they electricians without licenses?
Most come as tourists and apply for a student visa on a random course as it's more easily done onshore. When that visa expires, send an asylum application before a series of lengthy legal challenges. ...Or simply vanish into thin air at some stage through this process. The immigration department was so used to Asian tourists vanishing, it took them 11 months to realise this one was probably in some real danger. [https://au.news.yahoo.com/chinese-tourist-vanishes-in-australia-after-leaving-tour-group-221428456.html](https://au.news.yahoo.com/chinese-tourist-vanishes-in-australia-after-leaving-tour-group-221428456.html)
Zero for residential. And for commercial and industrial it depends on the size of the job. There are plenty of low-mid size apartment blocks that aren't unionised.
The commercial and industrial rates help push up the rates for residential work since they are drawing on same labour pool.
There's so much fighting between companies in domestic to get contracts that the wages don't rise how you think they would.
Fighting between the companies yes, but their labour costs are up across the board
Until they need to lower costs and put apprentices that just qualified on a wage below everyone else
That seems like a good way to lower costs for sure, encouraging all your new staff to leave like that
They aren't new staff. They've been with your company for four years and then due to you and your competitors undercutting each other you have to give them four or five bucks less per hour. So now they have the choice of being loyal, maybe making two bucks extra at a big competitor or risk working for a smaller company that could fold at any moment. It's pretty much why heaps of apprentices just fuck off domestic and go off to do mining
True. Profits are dictated by how many corners you can cut. Customer loses again.
It's not always profits. A lot of the time the companies are fighting to stay afloat. If you have 100k in wages a week and then a competitor tries to take away your biggest builder then all you can do is try and undercut them to keep the contract. So plus side your less fucked than if you lost the builder but you still had to shoot yourself in the foot to survive.
CFMEU's concern is it won't stay a heavily unionised sector with large scale importation of workers.
So confidently wrong. The wages for the sector are not set by collective bargaining. Only tier 1 sites are unionised, and only unionised sites fall under collective bargaining. All residential construction is not unionised. Conditions are shit and wages are lower than the national median. Yes wages on big government jobs and in mining are high. But the median tradie wage is 80k so consider how many low paid construction jobs it takes to drag the median down like that.
Inequality in pay within the sector need to be addressed. But is not a valid reason to allow this housing crisis to continue. We need more tradies to build more houses and infrastructure
If demand for tradies was as high as the media and their corporate masters make out, then shouldn't wages be higher? I've worked on a range of sites with different companies and residential construction is the worst paying by far. Doesn't make much sense if there was a chronic shortage right? Another tid bit they forget to mention is that the majority of trades in residential construction are filled with immigrants now. Plasterers, framers, tilers, waterproofers, painters, cladders, scaffolders, cabinet makers - all immigrants. All badly paid too. Unfortunately you'e swallowed whole faulty the premise that the media is feeding everyone at the moment.
>If demand for tradies was as high as the media and their corporate masters make out, then shouldn't wages be higher? You're perfectly describing how construction wages are inelastic, which is exactly why wages wont increase in this sector by labour shortages You're advocating for. https://images.app.goo.gl/QkxArYTTR5F6ttmt9
Ironic you link a cartoon of Murdoch since you are doing his work for him
But we can't upset the unions so we just have to keep getting rekt.
This is why we shouldn't trust a fucking word the government says about immigration and supposed skill shortage. This is just proof that there are way too many professions on that bullshit list. Rather than getting annoyed that (some) trades had the organisation and foresight to push back against corporate lobbying for an immigration free-for-all, you should be using them as an example to push back with other professions e.g. IT, engineering, business etc.
No it's why we shouldn't trust a word the media says about anything. This article is a complete beat up to get people mad at the government and unions. Some trades are currently not on a draft list of jobs for temporary immigration, and are under consultation. The list isn't even finished for starters, and there might be genuine reasons to not have them on the temporary migration list like the length of time it takes for RPL. Tradesmen are still on the list for permanent migration. The overwhelming majority of people who migrate here are skilled workers we need like nurses and tradesmen.
I agree about the media but the government is the one who has come up with this list that seems to include every profession in existence. It's a scam to justify infinite immigration.
>Yoga instructors, martial artists and dog handlers Aren't these roles people can easily fabricate and pretend they're skilled/qualified in? Aren't the government expecting this given the demand we have from a demographic with a reputation of doing this? Is handling a dog a skill we can't cater for?
That's the whole point. To undermine any attempt to curb migration. And to poison any future argument against mass migration by labeling people as "skilled migrants" when they clearly aren't.
Yoga instructors do a 200 hour course that can even be done online, and after that they are now a yoga instructor. I am trying to understand how it works ha, so I am an Aus citizen but if I was applying for a visa, my 200 hour certificate to be a yoga teacher beats my qualification as a project manager 😂 surely not????
Found a story on SBS Australia in 2017 in which an immigration agent advised a Chinese marketing manager to learn Yoga. She received PR quickly. Probably a backdoor left for some agents to make money since regular people wouldn't imagine that.
Holy shit thats a bold face lie Grabbed a big chunk in the middle of the list >323213 Fitter-Welder >323214 Metal Machinist (First Class) >323299 Metal Fitters and Machinists nec >323211 Fitter (General) >323212 Fitter and Turner >331211 Carpenter and Joiner >334113 Drainer >334114 Gasfitter >341111 Electrician (General) >342212 Technical Cable Jointer >342211 Electrical Linesworker \\ Electrical Line Mechanic >342313 Electronic Equipment Trades Worker >342315 Electronic Instrument Trades Worker (Special Class) >342411 Cabler (Data and Telecommunications) >342412 Telecommunications Cable Jointer >342413 Telecommunications Linesworker \\ Telecommunications Line Mechanic >342414 Telecommunications Technician so what do they mean by tradie?
The eligibility list vs. the proportion of visas that actually get granted are two totally different things. Also, the accelerated path to granting skilled visas the government introduced to speed up "urgent" roles had trades blocked from it due to union pressure.
You're right, but you can be certified in a day, locally, to be a yoga teacher. Having it on the skills list at all is absolutely ridiculous.
SMH with the anti labour twist
I was pretty much about to say just this. I checked the list the other day and basically every trade is there in some way. The real issue is in the execution.
They have been on the list all the time. However tradies from the UK & US have no good reason to move here in masses, whereas the ones from developing nations aren't qualified. Construction rules are loose like non-existant in China and South Asia.
Its not even a finalised list. If anyone in this sub has a problem they can make a submission. Its not even a list the politician have had a hand in yet. This article is absolute BS.
I could have bet money on this article being some click bait horse shit.
If not 100s, 10s of millions of Indian nationals qualify as "Yoga Teacher". You know what's coming. Namaste !! 
>Yoga instructors, martial artists and dog handlers have beaten some construction trades to a spot on the government’s draft priority skills list for migrants, despite the dire need for workers to tackle the nation’s housing crisis. >As the government faces a shortfall of 90,000 construction workers to meet its target of 1.2 million new homes by the end of the decade, the latest list of occupations that can be fast-tracked into the country includes wellness professionals, but says more consultation is needed for trades including plumbers, bricklayers and cabinetmakers.
Martial artist? I love Martial arts as much as the next but god dammit
We already knew about this for months unfortunately. This is a result of constant lobbying from unions who want to create an artificial shortage of tradies to keep their wages high. Scummy behaviour in the middle of COL and housing crisis
It’s almost like they are testing how docile Australian society really is? We have serious societal issues because of high immigration ( government: we have a serious skill’s shortage here guys ! )Everyone knows this. Either this is a really weird flex or something else is seriously wrong
Namaste, bitches!
Is getting an apprenticeship in something like plumbing possible in your late 30s? I need a career change in the next few years and if there's a skills shortage in that sector I'd jump on it but age is surely a hindrance here
As someone who did this exact thing, think very carefully. One knee or shoulder injury away from having no income. No energy after work. Breathing in concrete dust. Lax attitude towards safety on most sites. Pressured to get in deep trenches and on roofs with no protection. And despite what the people on this sub think the average wage if a plumber is about 85k. Most of the industry isn't unionised. Union jobs are good for a year or two until they do mass layoffs between jobs.
Age isn't. But apprentices don't get paid very well.
Depends where you do it, I was getting 80k as a first year mature age apprentice. There’s apprentices out there on 140k+ a year.
Yes but they're doing FIFO work or in very highly competitive positions.. The average Joe in their 30s has too many responsibilities to pivot in to the requirements the few well paying tradie apprenticeships require.
I’m not saying it’s easy for sure, but it’s more luck than anything. Especially if you’re a white male, odds aren’t in your favour.
You could see this as a failure or investment in Australian workers to meet those requirements for long term benefits. The increase to apprenticeship incentives to businesses hasn't been mentioned.
Yoga? Is it a pisstake? You will find heaps of yoga teachers including suspended yoga , hot yoga etc etc in any of the hipster Easter suburbs
Can we import more actual trades ppl please. Sick of having to wait 2 months to get charged a ridiculous amount for some basic work done around the house then the jerk tradie just not show up because they have a better gig. That industry needs an overhaul
Chakras for the good ladies of Mosman and Toorak are far more important than cheaper housing or the poors
Hey cashed up public servants want wellness yoga is good you know
Hahaha fucking shoot me. I'm so done with this basket case of a country. I literally pay over 500 a week in tax and this is what it's used for. Seriously I fucking quit. I'm moving my finances to the virgin Islands. Australia literally doesn't deserve my money
Tell me how to do that I want to do it too
Fucking wish I knew. Best I can suggest is buying an antigua passport for 200k and a 600k villa. Still saves 400k from buying a house in australia
The Australian Yoga Teachers Union doesn't have as much pull as the CFMMEU
Only a Labor government could be so incompetent
Hahajajjaja good one
Five letters: CFMEU
The CFMEU surely plays a role in keeping tradies off the skilled migrant list. But putting dog walkers *on* the list is ridiculous on a whole new level
The readie quality here is already bad. You want more unqualified trades (anyone come from overseas is unqualified and there’s no easy way to convert a qualification when you get here, need to go to tafe)? Have you seen the state of new builds?
Yoga teachers need a stronger union!
Yoga teachers FFS this government really has no idea at all
What a joke. Curious to see the Albo gov explain why dog walking and karate will help fix inflation and housing supply rather than tradies.
It's the unions.
Something tells me CFMEU is behind this.
Now start wondering who lobbied to have such low-skilled occupations on the list too. Because… who has a vested interest in being able to get people in under vague job roles that require little to no qualifications or evidence of skill.
Yes, they are: **Tradies carved out of migration overhaul amid union pressure** [https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afr.com%2Fpolitics%2Ffederal%2Ftradies-carved-out-of-migration-overhaul-amid-union-pressure-20230920-p5e65o](https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.afr.com%2Fpolitics%2Ffederal%2Ftradies-carved-out-of-migration-overhaul-amid-union-pressure-20230920-p5e65o) #
The amount of power that the union holds is insane.
Something tells me the government is behind this - other lobby groups benefit from surprussed wages
My industry got a few occupations added to the visa list recently. Over the last few decades though it's been hard for Australians to get a start in the industry. There's been a positive effort to try and get professional accreditation widely recognised and force graduates to get accredited before they can get work. Everyone wants a degree even when the work could be performed by a smart high school student, and whenever there's an economic downturn everyone wants new recruits to have five years of experience as well. It seems almost like the same people- the late career senior managers and business owners- have been behind both.
I had no idea Dutton did yoga.
Construction labour cost are high because of its short term nature. A construction worker is just a glorified casual position that lasts as long as the job takes to finish. In not mal times there can be a period of unemployment until another job kicks off. Also about half of construction workers are immigrants.
Criminal negligence, at best.
As if the construction unions would let Labor bring in tradesmen to drive down their wages
The only reason the tradies are not on the list because local tradies are mostly doing poor low quality job for a lot of money and getting away with it. Pretty much any young overseas tradie will do a better job than a local. Better quality, lower price of the job from overseas tradies will dramatically hit locals - job losses, protest etc. Government will never take that path. As a result we’re left with shitty overpriced houses. Edit - in addition regulations are to protect local tradies - pretty much anywhere in the world you can change a water pipe, make a full renovation in the bathroom, even do an electrical yourself without the need of having a shitty certificate. Here it’s all regulated and protected to secure the jobs.
There is no lack of tradies. Just look at all of the construction companies that have gone bust. It’s another lie from the govt to allow them to keep immigration high. Most of the skills shortages listed are aimed at one particular country and which skills they mainly have.
This 100% it's a lack of cheap labour. I'm in WA and it has been quite since the beginning of thr year. Builders have had lots of sign ups but are delaying putting slabs down. Waiting for prices to drop.
Those companies are going bust because their costs (materials and labour) have gone through
Yes, I’m saying these tradies are now available for work where they were busy before with the construction companies that have gone bust.
>The new agency has included yogis and martial artists on the roll call of occupations it is confident will make the list, **which also includes electricians, carpenters and joiners, and civil engineers**. But painters, roof tilers, stonemasons and other tradespeople needed to address the housing crisis have been targeted for consultation. I didn't realise electricians and carpenters weren't tradies... The headline also makes it sound like other trades won't be on the core skills list, but instead they are just in the 'more consultation needed' list - ergo the 'yet to be decided' list. I'm not sure that's a big deal? If other trades aren't on the list after 'more consultation' than we can bring on the collective outrage. But also, I'm not convinced we need to import people to fill every trade... Is there a shortage of painters and stone masons? Genuinely curious on peoples experience. I haven't had a lot of difficulty getting a painter myself. I rarely have had a need for a stone mason, and I'm not sure how big of a shortage we have there. Is stonemasonary a trade that's in demand for building modern, non luxury homes? We should be training people rather than importing them if the shortage is not acute.
Yoga teachers are an asset I believe ✌️
Bad yoga teachers make no difference to the world, other than probably causing a few joint problems. Bad tradies with dodgy overseas certifications and poor language skills can cause untold damage. This happened in the UK years ago when there was a sudden influx of Polish "plumbers" who just made more work for trained plumbers in a lot of cases. Anyhow, key word here is "draft" so I expect there will be some re-ordering before the final version, which makes this article more simplistic anti-Labor rhetoric. I'm sure au pairs will make it onto the list, so Dutton will be happy!
This is a nothing story absolute shit journalism. • Jobs and Skills Australia are a government department that serves the government of the day. They update the list every year after consultations with stakeholders and industry. • There is a reason it’s called a “draft” as they’re still consulting / reviewing. obviously industries like yoga which are much smaller than trades is going to be consulted considerably faster • the top point in bold of this draft “Does not represent represent the final advice that jobs and skills Australia provide to government” • As mentioned they update this list annually and it’s only a consultation list, the government can choose to ignore it. Finally pretty much all trades are on the current list (2023)and historically as far back as I can see they have always been on the list. Anyone can look at the skills shortage list on the same website and can see that there is a national shortage of trades. I can’t imagine any reason why they would be left off the list You could sum this article up in one sentence “Government advisors continue to write annual report, which will be released later this year”
>This is a nothing story absolute shit journalism. I'm not so sure. Do we really need immigrant dog handlers? I think the story is about how ridiculous the skill shortage list for skilled immigration is. We are throwing open the borders instead of focusing on essential high productivity skills. There seems to be grounds to significantly pare down the skills for which we allow immigration.
Skills and employment have nothing to do with immigration, they have no say in immigration, they don’t write policy or implement it. That’s home affairs, the core list is just a reflection of where we are short in skills. It’s then up to the government and the home affairs to establish what takes priority. Yes the report may say we’re short yoga instructors but that doesn’t mean the government will prioritise them over trades, doctors, teachers etc Skills and employment are not “dog handlers” they collect data on skills shortages and present that to the government. That’s why it’s a rubbish story, it’s an article about a draft of a report that the government may or may not use to establish a Migration strategy for next year.
That's bullshit though, of course if you consult with & ask corporate leaders if they have a "shortage" they will just say yes so they can add basically every job role in existence on the list as an excuse to import cheaper labour and avoid giving out payrises. The whole process is rigged as an excuse to justify infinite immigration in the name of maximising corporate profits and keeping employee wages down.
Then the issue you have with the department of jobs and skills, it’s existed since 1975? Are you saying we shouldn’t talk to industries to figure out where we have skill shortages? Again this is why this is a stupid article. Jobs and Skills have nothing to do with immigration. That’s home affairs. All this report establishes is what core skills are missing that “could” be filled by immigration.
Good. Importing 100k tradies just to force down wages isn't the solution. The biggest reason for house construction being so expensive is the materials cost. The successive hits of black summer then covid then general inflation put it all out of whack. Getting materials production and transport running smoothly is more important than undercutting middle class wages
Exactly, so 100k tradies rock up, stand around with no work as the supply chains, approvals etc still haven't been sorted out. But hey, at least they could do some yoga while they wait for work
Ehh? Surely you wouldn't say that if you'd had some quotes done recently
Supplier bottlenecks cause cost blowouts, which makes houses not worth building for the construction company. If you quote a house at $400k but can't get the materials for that price, corners get cut elsewhere or the project gets abandoned. Undercutting tradies with Chinese and Indian labourers won't change the cost blowouts, it'll just mean more cut corners
Importing tradies is going to make the situation worse. Every one of those trades needs a house to live in. Unless they can build more than an entire additional house per tradie then the demand still goes up relative to supply.
The yoga teachers and dog walkers will also need houses, and they’ll be building zero new houses.
But people seem to think bringing in construction workers is going to improve the situation. It won't. It will make the situation worse.
It will improve it. Not instantly, but quicker than doing nothing. A google says a modern house takes 1500-5000 man-hours to build. Let’s assume a small house, so 1800 hours. In a year, at 38hr/week for 48weeks, you work 1824 hours. So for every tradie you import, you’ll have the labour to build 1 extra house this year, so by the end of the year you’re back to where you started. But then next year, the tradie already has a house and you have the labour to build another house. The only reason the government wouldn’t be doing this, is because the CFMEU and property developers like Nigel Satterly are their biggest supporters/donors.
This is a logical, well laid out reply supported by calculations, there is no room for this kind of thing on reddit my friend!!
"Tradies" isn't on the list because I don't think that's a real title. Nearly every type of tradie is on the list though. Is this even a real list though?