The Economic Boom, Population and Structural Change and the Market for Tradespersons

The economic boom concentrated attention on skill shortages in Australia and their role in preventing the economy from reaching its full potential level of output and putting pressure on inflation. This paper concentrates on the extent to which the supply of tradespersons has adjusted to changed economic conditions and the regional dimension of these supply changes. While there is much anecdotal evidence on the regional dimension of skill shortages this has mainly focused on flows of labour into the resource-rich states of Western Australia and Queensland but there is no comprehensive analysis of the extent of the regional distribution of skilled labour, such as tradespersons, or the extent of changes in the population of tradespersons between regions as the economy as a whole and particular regions have experienced significant economic growth. This study uses mainly data from the Censuses of Population and Housing. The main finding of this paper is while socio economic factors affect the decision of tradespersons as to where to live and work, these effects appear limited. And while ever the issue of labour shortages for tradespersons exists, targeted immigration will have a role to play in reducing these deficiencies. JEL classification: J80; J21; J61