<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?> <docID>336738</docID> <postdate>2025-01-22 07:08:08</postdate> <headline>Skills crisis, slowing starts hammer big housing target</headline> <body><p><img class="size-full wp-image-336739" src="https://citynews.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/20170302001299090676-original-resized.jpg" alt="" width="900" height="600" /></p> <caption>Building bodies say more needs to be done to attract and retain people to trade jobs. (Lukas Coch/AAP PHOTOS)</caption> <p><span class="kicker-line">By <strong>Emily Verdouw</strong> in Canberra</span></p> <p><strong>A deepening skills shortage and plunging housing starts threaten the nation's ambitious target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029.</strong></p> <p>Housing construction data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday is expected to reflect the worst year for new home building in more than a decade.</p> <p>Housing starts in 2023/24 plummeted 8.8 per cent to 158,690 - a concerning trend for housing affordability and supply.</p> <p>The Housing Industry Association has flagged a dire need for 83,000 extra workers to meet demand for residential construction, citing challenges in attracting, training and retaining skilled workers.</p> <p>Managing director Jocelyn Martin blamed this on long-standing inadequacies in government policy.</p> <p>"The focus on fee-free TAFE is distracting from the real issue facing the supply of housing in Australia," Ms Martin said.</p> <p>"Successive governments have been aware of persistent skill shortages across key trades for decades and current policy approaches are doing very little to shift the dial."</p> <p>Wage subsidies for apprentices, streamlined visa systems for skilled migrants and a national campaign to promote trades as viable, rewarding careers were among strategies suggested by the HIA to address the shortages.</p> <p>Retention remained a key challenge, with high dropout rates among apprentices in their first two years, Mr Martin said.</p> <p>The National Housing Accord is an agreement between federal, state and territory governments that aims to build 1.2 million new homes by 2029 to address Australia's housing crisis.</p> <p>But there are already fears the federal government is falling behind the target.</p> <p>The HIA's concerns were echoed by Master Builders Australia chief executive Denita Wawn, who highlighted the importance of retention and completion in trade training.</p> <p>While supportive of the government's fee-free TAFE initiative, she expressed caution about legislating it at the expense of private and not-for-profit training providers.</p> <p>"There's simply not enough data to show what (fee-free TAFE) does to the market," Ms Wawn told ABC radio on Tuesday.</p> <p>"Only 50 per cent of people doing a building trade actually complete their course and that's where the emphasis and the focus should be, not about this legislation."</p> <p>Ms Wawn pointed to mentoring programs and group training organisations as effective tools for improving retention, while advocating for targeted incentives to support apprentices through the financial challenges of their training.</p> <p>"It's not so much the salaries; it's more the support through the duration of the apprenticeship," she said.</p> <p>"By the time you finish your apprenticeship, you don't have a HECS debt, you've been earning money, and you'll be able to get close to a six-figure salary."</p> <p>Addressing gender diversity was another priority, with women comprising just 2 per cent of the trade workforce.</p> <p>The Housing Industry Association's pre-budget submission will propose practical solutions to bolster the workforce, including reforms to the apprenticeship system and industry-wide efforts to improve workplace culture and safety</p> </body>