Capability in the building sector
The numbers employed in the industry have increased rapidly. Skilled and capable people are necessary to ensure buildings and houses are well built and maintained, but also to ensure consumers receive professional and reliable service.
A shortage of skilled staff continues to be recognised as a limitation in the building trades. Demand for carpenters has been growing at approximately 10 percent per annum. Annual training completions have been only 1.8 percent of the total carpentry workforce.8 Skill demand in recent years has been met by immigrant carpenters, with a net immigration gain of 500 carpenters since 2002.
Labour shortages also exist in other parts of the building sector, particularly a shortage of skilled building control staff. The Department's monitoring of the building control industry reveals an accelerating number of retirements among building officials, difficulty in recruiting skilled and experienced staff, and difficulty in retaining competent staff. Requirements to meet building consent authority accreditation standards over the next 3 years will contribute to further growth in demand for skilled resources among territorial authorities.
Licensing of building practitioners is provided for in the Building Act 2004 to ensure critical design and building work is carried out by people who have demonstrated they meet a national level of competence. From November 2009 critical building work must be undertaken or supervised by a licensed building practitioner.
The tight labour supply situation provides some challenges for the Department as it seeks to implement initiatives aimed at raising standards in the building industry. The shortage of skilled staff in conjunction with the high level of building activity will impact on territorial authorities' ability to respond to the changes arising from the Building Act 2004. Initiatives are under way to encourage territorial authorities to consider a range of options to ensure they have access to the necessary technical skills and to build capability.
The tight labour market is not expected to impact on the introduction of the licensed building practitioners scheme in the short term. The emphasis over the next 18 months is largely on design - establishing licence classes, setting competency standards and determining assessment methodologies. This will be done in close consultation with the industry.
Care will be taken with the design of assessment methodologies to ensure longstanding, competent but unqualified building practitioners can continue to practise and contribute to the industry.