[MarkSimpson]

Yeah. My brother just finished his apprenticeship in cabinet making and is already on more than me, a programmer. Unions don't have anything to do with it, either - I don't think he's even in one - it's just that the demand for tradesmen is so high over here. Hence the rise in cashed up bogans.

[grav1tas]

Is it really the case that the demand is so high or that supply is kept artificially low by tradesmen apprenticeship programs? I thought that was the point of the trades...to reduce competition by decreasing the number of competitors. Though this might be a misconception entirely...

[rdouble]

From my vantage point it looks like the demand is high. There is a mining boom, there have been serious disasters the past 2 years (bushfires, floods), and for some reason new residences are still being built at a fast clip.

I'm sitting here in Austraia, trying to summon up the will to fire up XCode and instead being dragged away to surf trips with my brother-in-law and all his tradie friends. They all have houses that I once dreamed about owning after I sold my startup to Google. That never happened, so I spent some time researching the trades here.

Many of the trades have apprenticeship programs but are essentially unlicensed. For instance, for some reason you can make loads of money laying tile at the moment. There might be "tiling apprenticeships" but for the most part you can just show up and make $20/hr lifting boxes and cleaning up, and $50/hr putting the tiles down.

Plumbers and electricians are in high demand, especially in the mines. In addition to demand, they have to be licensed, and thus they make more money. There is an apprenticeship period, various certs for residential, commercial, data, hospital, high-energy, marine, etc.

The apprenticeship period may be pushing up the wages of sparkies a bit but there does seem to be a lot of work. I don't think these apprenticeships are artificially limited like the way med school seats in the USA are limited. Plus, you get paid $19-$20/hr as an electrical apprentice, which is $40K a year.

One interesting thing I learned is that sparkies and plumbers can sign up for on-call insurance jobs and charge even more money. During this weekend's floods in Geelong my electrician friend's phone was constantly ringing. I think he got about 8 jobs that he passed over to his partner.

All that said, I get a bit of a bubble feeling over here. Especially for residential building. Who are all these new subdivision houses supposed to be for? The tradesmen building them? I can't imagine a lot of office drones communting from the Bellarine Peninsula to Melbourne. Or even being able to afford the homes in the first place. In other parts of the country, once the mines are all tapped I wonder where the money is going to come from.

[wisty]

Australia owes way more money than the USA, per capita. That's where the money is coming from. It's just that our government didn't owe a lot at the start of the GFC, and they were able to keep the private sector afloat for a while.

[Dramatize]

More so with our natural disasters creating huge demand for tradies.

[jacques_chester]

Yep. Between the resurgence of the mining boom and the floods and cyclones in Queensland and the floods in Victoria, demand for tradies is going to be out of control.

The Reserve Bank have decided not to account for the disasters in their inflation settings, but I reckon they will change their mind to prevent a wages breakout.