Schache: glad he quit uni for the building site. Photo / Michael Craig
With borders opening again there are fears more Kiwis will look abroad for greener pastures. In the third of a five-part series, Anne Gibson profiles the construction sector and its fight to retain staff.
Award-winning building apprentice Cam Schache, 20, calls Titirangi home and he can't see that changing any time soon.
The former Mount Albert Grammar student works for MyHome Renovations in Onehunga and last month he won the apprenticeship challenge for the Auckland branch of New Zealand Certified Builders.
"I really like New Zealand and I can't imagine myself going to live in Australia. Where I work is awesome but all my family and girlfriend are here too. I understand people who might have family in Australia wanting to look for work over there but that's not me," he said.
For Schache, the decision to stay home is straightforward. He'll soon be earning $80 an hour and will have more work he knows what to do with. But in the case of other young Kiwis with skills, employers and business owners know thousands of them will soon be booking flights out of New Zealand. They fear that outward flow will be far greater than the migrant numbers able to come in, making an already critical shortage of workers far worse.
Analysts in an ANZ report in March estimated a "fairly significant outflow" of Kiwis, in the order of 20,000 a year. The removal of departure cards means it is no longer possible to accurately assess transtasman migration.
With the border still tight for non-Kiwi visitors, the report says it will be easier for Kiwis to leave than for foreign workers to arrive at a time when the market is facing an insatiable demand for workers.
That's not good news for the construction sector, already facing estimated workers shortages of up to 250,000.
Construction is New Zealand's fourth biggest employer at 280,000-plus people. Yet the country is still short of people because growth is so strong. By 2024, national annual residential and commercial construction values will hit $48.3b, according to the National Construction Pipeline Report 2021, up from $45b in 2018.
Impediments that could prevent activity in the residential sector from growing in the short term include access to skilled workers and access to materials, the report said.
Mark Williams, Waihanga Ara Rua (Construction & Infrastructure) Workforce Development Council general manager of strategy and insights, indicated big numbers.
"The site-based in scope construction (residential and commercial) workforce is estimated at 237,230 [people] in the current year with the forecast workforce gap being a shortage of 205,601 people," Williams said.
"If we were to look at the next three years the estimated workforce increases to 243,992 but the supply-demand gap also increases to a peak of 235,644 people," he said.
Fletcher Building is New Zealand's biggest construction sector employer, with 16,000 staff here, Australia and in the Pacific, up from 14,000 recently: The company operates 30 different business units and says it is always looking for new talent.
Nick Matthews, of New Zealand Certified Builders' says a record number of building apprenticeships in recent years has helped supply the sector with desperately-needed skills.
"Nationwide we're seeing increasing numbers of eager, talented apprentices entering the trade from a variety of backgrounds."
Competitors in the apprenticeship challenge like Cam were either employed by council member builders or enrolled with the Industry Training Association Building, he said.
Jason Hungerford, director of the Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation said New Zealand had a record 21,600 apprentices in training in 16 trades by the end of March, with 65 per cent of active apprentices enrolled in carpentry.
That number represented a 77 per cent increase from the 12,200 apprentices in March 2020. The organisation had signed up over 6500 apprentices in 2021 alone. The Government's Apprenticeship Boost and TTAF (free training) initiatives had played a significant part in that growth, he said.
Matthews said the future of the building industry depends on a robust pipeline of trade-qualified and well-rounded builders. Apprentices were more likely to be in their late 20s or early 30s, than 18 these days. Often, they'd been working elsewhere before the lure of getting a skilled trade beckoned. Apprentices aged 40 and over had entered the New Zealand Certified Builders awards, he said.
But is New Zealand training enough apprentices and will they stay, or are we to be Australia's free training ground?
"That's the very real risk," Matthews says. "We could see thousands of apprentices going overseas."
Employers get subsidies and apprentices get free course fees via Work and Income's Apprenticeship Boost scheme but that finishes in early August. Funding can mean an extra $16,000 goes into footing bills for one apprentice for two years under the scheme as it stands now.
Industry sector leaders say they have been asking the Government about an extension to the scheme but have yet to receive a reply. The list of shortages across the construction sector is daunting, as Immigration New Zealand's list of skills shortages in the construction, engineering and trade sectors shows.
As of early 2021, skilled job shortages included project manager, project builder, site foreman, surveyor and quantity surveyor, surveying technicians, engineers in civil, structural, electrical, telecoms, engineering draughts persons and technicians, carpenter and joiner, metal fabricator, welders and fitters, bricklayer and stonemason, building inspector/surveyor, floor finishers, glaziers, plasterers, tilers (wall, floor, roof), plumbers and drain layers, electricians, mechanics in air conditioning, refrigeration, electric line, cable joiner, telecommunications technicians, truck drivers and scaffolders.
Alan Pollard, Civil Contractors' chief executive, said the critical worker shortage was exacerbated by limited connections to schools, a lack of support for work-ready training and induction and the high cost of training with a limited supply of trainers.
A report in April tackled how to support new entrants to join the workforce – an issue of prime importance for an industry employing up to 60,000 Kiwis building roads, water networks, airports and other essential infrastructure, he said.
Government work with industry via the Construction Skills Action Plan, Ministry of Social Development, Regional Skills Hubs and Te Puni Kokiri-funded projects had made a big difference. But more was needed to tie in with industry and prepare people for success when starting work and ready them for the jobs, Pollard said.
Rick Herd, chief executive of commercial construction company Naylor Love, says if New Zealand – and that includes the Government – doesn't get this right the economy and the country's progress would suffer.
Every sector of his industry was suffering worker shortages from pouring concrete to designers, consultants, managers as well as staff in council consenting divisions, he said.
In the meantime Cam Schache is intent on improving his skills as a carpenter and builder. To win the apprenticeship challenge he was given eight hours to build an outdoor bench or seat, following specific design plans and meeting minimum safety requirements. His outdoor seat was auctioned on TradeMe last month with the proceeds going to the Cancer Society.
Schache will compete in the national final held in Hamilton in November where the country's top building apprentice for this year will emerge.
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