Trade Wars: Major Brisbane Projects Square Off in Fight for Labour

Builders are cruising non-union job sites and reportedly offering up to $240,000 pa for plumbers and chippies in the tussle for tradies in south-east Queensland.

With two major landmark projects absorbing the lion’s share of an already constrained labour market, it’s a good time to be a subcontractor.

“You knew they were doing all the tiling in the Queen’s Wharf project, you couldn’t get a tiler for love nor money.”

That was the inside word from a Brisbane recruiter who said skilled labour had become a battleground in the river city.

And this is likely to intensify in the coming weeks after John Holland broke ground on Dexus’s $2.5-billion Waterfront Brisbane project earlier this month.

The city-shaping project alongside the ongoing construction of the $3.6-billion Queen’s Wharf will absorb a huge volume of labour from the market, which Dexus executive general manager of funds management Deborah Coakley says can only be appeased with short-term migration of skilled labour.

“Labour costs as well as all input costs are just a general concern in the construction space and that is nationally … increasing short-term migration is really important to us,” Coakley says.

“[Labour procurement] is a national problem. We’ve got a demand for skilled and capable people on all those sites.

“Good development teams are very attuned to [the need to start ordering sooner] and they’re really understanding early on, working with the builder on what is required to pre-procure and get set. People is the hardest thing to pre-procure, you can’t have them sitting in a shed somewhere waiting to come on site.”

Coakley says they are hunting tradies in south-east Queensland to help build the newly approved “poster child” project.

“It’s an important project and this is where you need to be. If you live in Queensland and you’re a tradie, it’s the project to be on,” she says.

“I think one of the advantages that the waterfront project has, and we’re working with John Holland on that project, is that it’s a poster child project.

“If you want a job on the Waterfront project, it will be the poster child project that makes your CV. We will certainly be working very hard to ensure that we provide a great experience for people on that site.”

Multiplex has had its work cut out for it trying to build the mammoth placemaking project over the past few years with high rainfall figures, a pandemic and chronic labour shortages all throwing curveballs.

The opening date for Queen’s Wharf has been pushed back a few months to the latter half of 2023, with a cost blowout of at least 10 per cent.

And with all this pent-up demand for trades, it is no wonder south-east Queensland developers are bringing construction in-house to help manage cost shock and inflationary pressures, and avoid the labour shortages hamstringing many projects across the region.

Mosaic founder Brook Monahan says labour supply continues to challenge the construction sector but a decision to develop a construction arm ensures they can “deliver consistently”.

“It gives us a market advantage in tough times such as these, being much more able to influence outcomes and mitigate risk in critical areas such as labour and supply of materials. Over many years we have built an exceptional internal capability with a team of experienced construction professionals within Mosaic Construction,” Monahan says.

“We are certainly not immune to the challenges that have arisen through initial material shortages and continuing labour-supply problems.

“We have built a unique—especially for a private company—fully integrated business model that sees us control every aspect of the development process. Central to this is in-housing the ultimate delivery of our projects through Mosaic Construction.”

Monahan says the company has delivered 60 projects across south-east Queensland since 2014 and has 12 active construction sites employing “thousands of workers and subcontractors” with a strong pipeline of work.

He says it takes a forensic approach to forecasting, strategy, research and innovation in order to make it work.

“We carefully monitor and analyse historical data, as well real-time current trends in order to forecast potential cost escalations and labour shortages to the best of our ability. This is by no means a perfect science or fool-proof formula for success but it has served us well to date.

“We have also built a loyal trades and supplier base over many years through an authentic approach to relationships and delivering quality outcomes. Like our customers, they have confidence in ongoing employment and business from Mosaic because of our proven track record for delivery, which goes a long way.”

Multiplex declined to comment on labour shortages and its program of works.

theurbandeveloper.com.au