With the federal government and opposition vowing to reduce migration numbers in recent weeks, Australia’s ongoing skills shortages is likely to force businesses to increasingly seek overseas suppliers and put another nail in the coffin for local manufacturing, according to Scott Rawson.
A reduction in the number of skilled migrants will place added pressure on what is already a tight labour market, with unemployment falling to 4 per cent in May and skills shortages continuing to impact a wide variety of industries.
At the same time, we’re seeing continued growth in sectors such as residential and commercial construction, civil works, and mining and resources. We need more people to fill these jobs, not fewer.
The lack of skilled labour nationally has forced our company to start sourcing overseas suppliers, because local companies simply can’t keep up with demand.
In the last six months alone we’ve had to start sourcing components for our portable building manufacturing from overseas, because even despite current shipping delays, the product is still arriving two to three times faster than local lead times.
As an example, one of our door suppliers based in South Australia currently has a lead time of between eight and 16 weeks. We want to support local manufacturers as much as we can, but we simply can’t wait that long.
I have no doubt there are other businesses in the same position.
While an agreement has been reached between the Western Australian government and federal government to allocate 10,000 skilled migration places to WA for the 2024-25 period, that number needs to be spread across several industries, at a time when demand for labour nationally continues to be a challenge.
It’s a good start, but more skilled workers are needed, especially when we take into account Australia’s ageing population, with not enough young people taking up specific trades to meet current and future demand.
Added to this are the difficulties and delays associated with the application and approvals when attempting to bring skilled workers into Australia.
It’s not enough for the government to simply support and promote skilled migration, the application process needs to be improved to assist businesses to bring on workers in an efficient and timely manner, and prioritise areas of peak demand.
It’s true that housing an increasing population is an ongoing challenge, and in fact the latest Bankwest Curtin Economic Centre report looking at the future of WA’s construction industry highlights that at current rates of completion, the state will be unable to meet the National Housing Accord target.
However the report also notes there remains a shortage of construction workers and a need to train more apprentices and trainees.
It’s just yet another example of why Australia needs to be encouraging and assisting more skilled migrants into the industry, not fewer.
Scott Rawson is the founder and Managing Director of Instant Products Group, a Western Australian based group of companies offering unique, innovatively-designed products and solutions to clients.
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