Hesperia boss Ben Lisle is calling on authorities to more aggressively target overseas migration to plug the state’s skills gap.
Hesperia director Ben Lisle says authorities need to target international migration to Western Australia more aggressively, to prevent skills shortages and speed up delivery of housing.
Speaking at a Urban Development Institute of Australia WA event today, Mr Lisle pointed out the state’s reliance on overseas workers to meet its workforce needs.
“Australia has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world, so intrastate [migration] will not be the answer, which means you need to be talking about international,” he said.
“You have to make it attractive to make the big move, and you have to take away the friction points, which [include] getting through the application process.”
Mr Lisle added that modelling was required to calculate exactly which skills were required to address the shortfalls, which has been done by industry in the past.
“You have to do that with a clear view on exactly what we would need to do that,
“It can be done [but] it needs to be pursued more aggressively.”
Michelson Alexander special adviser Abul Rizvi, an immigration expert and the former deputy secretary for the Federal Department of Communications, said despite high migration levels I the past 12 months, more construction workers were needed.
“Both the Western Australian economy and the east coast economy is strong, and as a result we’re just not getting in WA and in the rest of the states the construction workforce,” he said.
“It’s not that we’re not getting people, the people are coming in at a very rapid rate, I just see no evidence that those people have the skills we need.”
Dr Rizvi said the amount of temporary entrants living in Australia increased a record 720,000 in 2022, while the number of employed people increased by 469,000.
He said skilled temporary workers were key to economies remaining competitive, criticising the Federal Government’s abolition of 457 visas in 2017.
“If your skilled temporary entry system is uncompetitive, you will lose the war for talent,” he said.
“The changes the Commonwealth government made in 2017 to the skilled temporary entry were about as dumb as they come.”
Mr Lisle added that despite the cyclical nature of WA’s economy, skilled migration should be a top priority for policy makers in all economic conditions.
“In business, we are always looking at where the most strategic place to spend money, and bringing forward revenue that is associated with that activity will be able to pay many times for being able to address the labour shortages, avoid homelessness, avoid cost of living pressures, avoid the deferral or cancellation of projects which miss the commodities cycle,” he said.
“It’s an absolute no brainer, it’s an absolute strategic place to spend resources and the fact it’s even a discussion is mind-boggling.”
Department of Training & Workforce Development director general Karen Ho echoed that sentiment.
“We can expect our economy to go through these cycles, and I think the important thing at this point for us is to be thinking about the counter-cyclical measures that can be put in place on the demand side and the supply side, to try and smooth things out, so we don’t have these very major impacts,” she said.
She added that the department had observed a 136 per cent increase in apprenticeship and traineeship commencements in building and construction since before the pandemic.
“[It’s] fantastic, but it’s only really catch up, and we need to sustain those apprentices and continue with those commencements and keep that pipeline smooth, otherwise if we don’t do that we will have the same thing occur in the next upturn,” she said.
She said reduced training fees, incentives and an increase range of courses had encouraged more people to upskill.
UDIA WA is calling for a construction workforce attraction strategy in WA, to address the critical construction and development skills shortages.
“The development industry’s capacity to meet current and future housing demand is being restricted due to access to relevant skilled labour,” UDIA WA CEO Tanya Steinbeck said.
“That is going to start having an even greater impact on housing supply and affordability.”
“In our recent State Budget submission, UDIA WA called on government for a Construction Workforce Attraction Strategy for Perth and the regions, and the negotiation of a skills and labour agreement for the construction industry.”
