ANZSCO 3341 New South Wales
Plumbers September 2016
Labour Economics Office, New South Wales
Department of Employment
Current labour market rating Shortage
Previous labour market rating (September 2015) Shortage
Comments
There is a general shortage of plumbers in NSW with employers filling around one third of surveyed vacancies. All surveyed specialisations are in shortage.
Survey results
· The Department of Employment survey of employers who had recently advertised for plumbers found that 35 per cent of vacancies were filled within the survey period.[1] This compares with 50 per cent in 2015.
· There was an average of 2.6 applicants per vacancy of whom an average of 0.4 per vacancy were considered suitable by employers.
· Sydney-based employers had more success in filling their vacancies than their regional counterparts (44 per cent compared with 14 per cent). However regional employers attracted a higher number of qualified applicants per vacancy (3.6 compared to 0.9 for those in Sydney).
· Half of employers attracted either no applicants or no qualified applicants in response to their advertisements.
· Unfilled and hard-to-fill vacancies were distributed over various areas of Sydney and regional NSW.
· Around 35 per cent of vacancies for general plumbers were filled. These vacancies included domestic and commercial maintenance, new housing, and other construction work such as office building.
· One third of vacancies for roof plumbers were unfilled. Most roof plumber vacancies advertised were in Sydney metropolitan area.
· No surveyed licensed gas fitter vacancy was filled.
· Some employers advertised for either a tradesperson or 3rd/4th year apprentice to attempt to broaden the field of applicants while others took on an apprentice after failing to attract suitable qualified applicants.
· Most Sydney employers noted there was a substantial amount of construction occurring and this was making it very difficult to recruit tradespersons including plumbers.
o Some of the small to medium sized companies indicated that are not able to match the wages paid to plumbers by the bigger companies and on large construction projects.
Unsuitable applicants
· Around one third of applicants were not qualified plumbers.
· The most frequently reasons cited by employers for the unsuitability of qualified applicants were that they lacked the needed experience in a particular sector or specialisation (such as construction plumbing or gasfitting) and not having sufficient experience overall.
· Other reasons for the unsuitability of applicants included poor references and not having their own vehicle or driving licence.
Demand and supply trends
· Demand for plumbers has benefited from strong building activity in NSW.
o The total, inflation adjusted, value of building work done grew by 10.9 per cent in 2015-16, with growth being stronger than the national average of 6.2 per cent. This was the fourth consecutive year where growth in New South Wales exceeded 10 per cent.[2]
o Growth in 2015-16 was driven by the residential sector where the overall value of work done increased by 15.6 per cent. The increase for construction of new residences other than houses was 32.8 per cent while that for new houses was 3.4percent (after having grown 15.2 per cent in 2014-15).[3]
o The value of non-residential work increased by 3.2 per cent in 2015-16, following growth of 8.3per cent in the previous financial year.[4]
· After a recent peak of 990 in the year ended March 2014, apprenticeship completions in plumbing fell to an annual average of about 700 in the two years ended March 2016, but this was only slightly below the decade average. In contrast, the average of around 1840 commencements of apprenticeships in the two years ended March 2016 was 22 per cent above the decade average for commencements.[5]
· After reaching a peak of 136 in 2012-13, the number of primary applicant 457 temporary skilled migration visas granted for plumbers averaged about 80 per annum in the three years ended 2015-16.[6]
Labour Economics Office, New South Wales
Department of Employment
[1] More information on the SERA can be found at https://docs.employment.gov.au/node/34245.
[2] ABS, Construction Work Done, Preliminary, June 2016 (8755.0), chain volume measures, original.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] National Centre for Vocational Education Research, Apprentices and Trainees.
[6] Department of Immigration and Border Protection, https://data.gov.au/dataset/visa-temporary-work-skilled.