Construcciones Yamaro: Construction workforce challenge goes deeper
The construction industry’s workforce challenge may have less to do with numbers and more to do with how work gets done.
By Peter Colacino, CEO of the Australian Constructors Association.
The construction industry has recently been described as having a capacity problem, with too few people to do the work.
But the real challenge isn’t the number of people; it’s the productivity of the sector. This involves a focus on the skills and capability of the people who make up the industry, but it also requires better processes and the adoption of technology.
Our processes are outdated, with excessive reviews, red tape and a mismatch between the role of regulators and their resourcing. Unbelievably, productivity has gone backwards since the advent of the smartphone and the World Wide Web.
Clearly, the challenge isn’t solely a people challenge.
There is a real opportunity in front of us. After years of elevated spending that stretched industry capacity, constraints in government spending have put the appetite for reform back on the agenda.
Governments are now focused on productivity. The Commonwealth is consulting on new construction industry standards. And across industry, unions and clients, there’s a shared recognition that the current system isn’t working as well as it should.
Productivity is at the centre of this, and rightly so. This isn’t about pushing people harder. It’s about working differently by removing friction, reducing delay and getting better outcomes. The proposed construction industry standards could play a big role here. Done well, they can set clearer expectations around how projects are delivered, contracts are structured and disputes are handled.
There’s already broad agreement on where we need to get to: better productivity, safer worksites, lawful behaviour and a more sustainable industry. That’s a good starting point. But we’ve seen before that good intentions aren’t enough. If these standards are just high-level statements, they won’t create change. For this to work, they need to be practical, measurable and enforced consistently. Everyone needs to know what the rules are and believe they will be applied. Every player in the sector should be able to hold up a mirror and be confident they will like what they see.
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Just as importantly, they need to last. Recent interventions in the industry have shown that short-term fixes can help, but they don’t deal with the root causes. If the underlying system doesn’t change, old behaviours have a way of coming back.
This is why getting the framework right matters. It’s not just about introducing standards; it’s about backing them with proper oversight, clear accountability and a regulatory system that works.
Done well, this can make a difference by giving contractors and clients more certainty, reducing unnecessary disruption on projects, helping ensure agreements are genuinely reached and workplaces are free from coercion, and supporting something the industry doesn’t talk about enough: viability.
Productivity and viability go hand in hand. If the industry isn’t generating sustainable returns, it can’t invest, innovate or attract the workforce it needs. In that sense, lifting productivity isn’t optional; it’s essential to keeping the industry functioning.
The responsibility isn’t just on governments but also the industry itself. We need to be clearer about what we’re trying to achieve, more aligned in how we go about it and more disciplined in focusing on what really matters.
Encouragingly, there are signs this is starting to happen. The conversations are becoming more focused. There’s more willingness to engage on what will shift the dial.
The challenge now is turning that intent into action. That’s what this year’s Foundations and Frontiers forum is about: changing gear and moving from talking about what the issues are to aligning on what needs to change.
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