Kim Macdonald: Mining style week-on, week-off work rosters would help the housing sector

It seems ridiculous that residential construction sites mostly sit empty on weekends — almost one-third of the week — in the midst of a housing crisis.

But a major builder, who shall remain nameless, explained that he tried offering penalty rates to get his tradies to work weekends but there were no takers for a six or seven-day work week.

On the contrary, when wages shot up a few years ago, most of his tradies scaled down from five days a week to only four, happy to make the same amount of money while also enjoying a long weekend.

He believes that if tradies were able to work Saturday and Sundays casually, many would use the higher penalty rates to sustain a three-day work week instead.

While it is of course a gross generalisation, the sheer number of builders with a version of this story indicates it is based on a solid trend.

I am not judging someone for seeking a work-life balance — with anecdotes suggesting fishing and surfing trips rank highly in tradies’ priorities — but it leaves the builders navigating a profitless boom with heavy weekend overheads.

And tenants are made to continue paying exorbitant rents amid the housing shortage, sometimes while enduring the slow construction of their own home.

Australia does have a labour shortage, but it also has one of the highest number of construction workers per 1000 people at 5.2 per cent, compared to Canada (4.1 per cent), the US (3.6 per cent) the UK (3.1 per cent) and the OECD (3.3 per cent), according to 2023 World Bank statistics.

The irony here is that the work-life balance tradies are seeking may backfire, with Labor this week announcing plans — should it get re-elected — to fast-track the qualifications of 6000 tradies to help meet our 1.2 million new homes target. With the supply of tradies to go up, their potential to charge a premium goes down.

It is time to better maximise productivity in residential housing while ensuring it can compete with the mining industry for workers.

To this end, I believe a mining-style week-on, week-off roster would help the sector, ensuring alternative crews working non-stop on each home.

And it would give tradies a decent break to rest their weary bodies — and a spot of fishing too.