Construction is the fifth largest employing industry in Australia, employing 974 000 people (or 9.2 per cent of the total workforce) as at February 2008 (1). The building and construction industry has also been one of the key drivers of recent growth in Queensland. The Australian Bureau of statistics estimates that in 2006/07, 28.6%1 of the state economic growth was fuelled directly by the building and construction industry, much more than any other sector and equal to the next three best performing industries combined.  With one in every five new jobs in Queensland over the last five years created by the construction industry, in addition to driving over a quarter of the state’s economic growth, the importance of the building and construction industry in Queensland cannot be underestimated. The Construction industry comprises seven sectors: Building Construction, Non-Building Construction, Site Preparation Services, Building Structure Services, Installation Trade Services, Building Completion Services and Other Construction Services (3). The sectors are built around the stage of construction rather than whether the work is in residential, non-residential or engineering/infrastructure.

Nine of the last ten years and the last seven consecutive years have been characterised by a rise in employment in the Construction industry. This type of consistent and protracted growth is unprecedented, and future prediction for the Construction industry are very positive, however there is also a downside to this trend  – during the last few years, the demand for skilled labour has been greater than supply which has resulted in extensive skill shortages (1)(2). This challenge has spurred numerous debates and a stream of research into the issue of skill shortages in the Construction industry.

Objectives:

The objectives of the project were to:

• Provide a short review of Queensland’s construction industry, including trends and change drivers impacting upon employment and training of apprentices and trainees.
• Identify and analyse innovative strategies used (or considered) in Australia and elsewhere to reduce the impact on the training of apprentices and trainees during periods of industry and economic downturn.
• Utilise scenario planning methodology to develop and explore plausible futures in the form of three future scenarios for the Queensland construction industry that could markedly affect the training of apprentices and trainees in the Construction industry.
• Provide recommendations to assist Construction Skills Queensland in dealing effectively with the implications of the outcomes of this project.

The Project Team

The project team included:

• Retha Wiesner, University of Southern Queensland
• Bruce Millet, University of Southern Queensland
• Shane Zhang, James Cook University

The Final Report:
Strategies to minimise
the impact of challenging
times on training

------------------------------------
Funding Partner:

------------------------------------
Participating Members:

------------------------------------