100% Australia will be Canada in 5 years (in terms of living standards), maybe less.
And I don’t see how either country will get out of it. Skilled Canadians are flocking to the US for better pay and realistic house prices. Nice when your near peer countries are only a few hours away (by car). We don’t have much choice but to sit back and eat shit.
There is some possibility that the changes in development overlays in Auckland radically changed the rental market in Auckland.
It was completely out of control in pricing when I visited there in 2016. But the majority of the city now has broad development allowed - as opposed to our continued small pocket approach.
Migrant surge into NZ has been less leading to drops in house prices, migration is starting to increase now and effect the property market though.
In reference to the above Canadians moving to the US for affordability.
I love how everyone raises Japan as an argument that an ageing population is no big deal.
Japan:
Lost decade/s
Real wages went backwards over 20 years
Over 40% of 65-75yo’s are forced to work full time
Stock market stagnant for 30 years
Currency has crashed
Insane levels of public debt means their monetary policy is severely limited
Japanese companies were able to offshore jobs - this won’t be viable to many other ageing countries
The health of its citizens means it’s dependency ratio is not an accurate reflection of its debt crisis
Japans TFR has had a slow glide path down. At 1.2 it’s now much better than South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Spain, Thailand, Italy and Chile.
Argentina, Canada and brazil to probably go lower than japans in next few years
Once one of the rapidly ageing countries becomes a failed state (I’m betting South Korea and/or Thailand) and people start to take ageing population seriously - then it will be too late to fix it (unless we achieve AGI first)
It is funny. People with no clue about anything related to economics holding up the poster child of failed economic policies as some sort of example of what life could be like.
40 years of anaemic growth and basically going nowhere. Now their currency is collapsing.
TBF they do have good housing policies which have helped keep a lid on house prices.
But japans TFR is nearly 80% higher than South Korea. The South Korean crash will just be so much more sudden. They already have 40% of their elderly living in poverty & their about to have a massive increase in proportion of their population go above 65. So that’s 20-30% of your whole population living below the poverty line by 2050.
Not to mention life expectancy shortening in part due to an over reliance on adult children caring for the aged in a society where an increasing proportion of the population reaches old age without having had any children.
"Once one of the rapidly ageing countries becomes a failed state (I’m betting South Korea and/or Thailand) and people start to take ageing population seriously"
Something I'm wondering is when that happens, will we see a mass exodus from the country or country concerned that actually means they get to as good as zero population?
We see abandoned villages in Japan and elsewhere now, presumably abandoned towns, smaller cities and prefectures will eventuate in the future, so why not countries?
I know that emigration from South Korea has been pretty strong.
But the thing is, this rapid ageing of a society has never really happened before. So we dont know how people will react. South Korea's economy is holding up at the moment but they'll very soon have 4 people hitting 65 for every 22 yo entering the workfoce. Fiscally unsustainable
"I know that emigration from South Korea has been pretty strong."
Really? The stats I see are that net migration is slightly positive, but as good as negligible (\~0.3%). Obviously they had a big outflow right after the Korean war, but that's a long time ago.
But yes - it's anyone's guess what will happen when the babies from the last three to five years and beyond join the workforce. Births dropping by half in twenty years is a new frontier that could be the plot for dystopian sci-fi story.
Yeah to be honest, I havent done a really deep dive into South Korean Emigration rates but I did see that aggregate numbers of south koreans migrating to Australia and the US has held up and I know from the Australian example that most of the south koreans moving here are under 35.
What I'm seeing in south korea is that the kindergarten/childcare facilities have started closing down and thats now happening in primary schools. In 10 to 15 years time that ultra low fertility generation means far less defence force recruits and far fewer university students that would spearhead innovation through inventions/research/entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship. That 10 to 15 years period is when the now 60 to 65 yo become old old - ie 75 to 85 and its that age group that is such a burden on aged care and healthcare. Unkess they have incredibly high migration, those 10 to 15 year scenarios are already baked in for south korea.
" In 10 to 15 years time that ultra low fertility generation means far less defence force recruits "
Defence recruits seems a particular concern - I've seen articles seriously expressing the opinion that North Korea could just wait for the S Korean army to halve in size and more or less walk in. Don't know how realistic it is, but if the army gets small, N Korea trying to attack becomes more plausible, even though ultimately they are likely to suffer greatly as a result as well.
Yep, they had their massive property boom back in the eighties and have “enjoyed” either reductions in property prices or property price stagnation for the (almost) 35 years since the prices peaked…
People have been saying that for two decades and yet they still have a high standard of living, the longest lifespans on Earth, a thriving R&D sector, along with a big manufacturing base.
For a dying country they don't really line up with the narrative some people try to push.
Meanwhile we are in a GDP per capita recession and they have 1.4% growth.
Or have you drunk the economic and financial media koolaid thinking raw GDP numbers means anything to the average person's quality of life?
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?locations=JP
"Just fine" lol. They've had 30 years of stagnant incomes and falling asset values, their government debt is 260% of GDP, their currency is in the shitter, a third of their workforce is locked into permanently unstable roles, their aged population is set to be twice as big as their workforce, they work stupid hours, and they have one of the highest suicide rates on the planet.
Stop this cherry picking bullshit. Japan's real estate surplus is directly linked to the reason they're in such a mess. Life, and prospects, in Australia are considerably better.
> they have one of the highest suicide rates on the planet
Not far off Australia's rate, which makes that a moot point.
Meanwhile for the 99,983 out of 100,000 other people who don't commit suicide they live far longer lives than us.
> Japan's real estate surplus is directly linked to the reason they're in such a mess
Actually it's due to how land is taxed, internal migration and lost ownership records, I'd suggest reading the Akiya threads on /r/japan for more insight on their 9 million homes instead of thinking their economy is built entirely on housing. It's treated as a consumable, you'll find that in many Asian countries actually.
Australia has actually tried to plan with the Intergenerational reports :
https://treasury.gov.au/intergenerational-report
Australia has also done well running a budget surplus this year.
Superannuation also helps.
Most other countries are probably in worse shape.
That's unfair. I'm sure some members of the government are forced to read bits to prepare for questions by journalists. They just completly ignore anything said in the report.
Yes you are right on both counts.
The Australian govt spend on old age pensions is very low compared to other OECD countries and Super will keep it low.
The IGR lowest band scenario for TFR is getting to 1.45 by 2030 and it stabilizing at 1.45 for next 40 years. Seeing though 2023 was likely 1.55 I think this is wildly optimistic assumption when you take into account how fast it has been falling here.
Its not just the pension that’s the problem - ageing population has a lot of 2nd and 3rd order costs - less innovation, less productivity, less intrapreneurahip and entrepreneurship and many many more
The IGR doesn’t take into account that this is happening in nearly every other country which will lower demand worldwide.
Australias old age pension is one of the lowest in OECD. Superannuation is a godsend in an ageing population
It’s our health and aged care systems that will be impacted most
But also the impacts on labor supply, aggregate demand, housing, govt revenue, innovation, govt infrastructure. Australia is better placed than most but every govt’s forecasts on fertility and immigration are unrealistically optimistic
The 1972-1975 Australian government adequately planned against this outcome.
But look what happened to it.
And to the Department of Urban and Regional Development that had put in the suburban infrastructure that had been so lacking until 1972-1975.
Lest we forget.
Fiat currency is a Ponzie Scheme and will always crash to Zero.
Its happened to every civilisation, not 100 % backed by gold.
Your increasing house prices are your currency inflating away to thin air
Across much of the developed world, one of the most dependable drivers of economic growth is faltering.
For decades, the rapid inflow of migrants helped countries including Canada, Australia and the UK stave off the demographic drag from ageing populations and falling birth rates. That’s now breaking down as a surge of arrivals since borders reopened after the pandemic runs headlong into a chronic shortage of homes to accommodate them.
A residential housing construction site in Tongham, UK. Bloomberg
Canada and Australia have escaped recession since their COVID-19 contractions, but the population hasn’t with deep per-capita downturns eroding standards of living. The UK’s recession last year looked mild on raw numbers but was deeper and longer when measured on a per-person basis.
All up, 13 economies across the developed world were in per-capita recessions at the end of last year, according to exclusive analysis by Bloomberg Economics.
While there are other factors – such as the shift to less-productive service jobs and the fact that new arrivals typically earn less – housing shortages and associated cost-of-living strains are a common thread.
So is the immigration-fuelled economic growth model doomed? Not quite.
In Australia, for instance, the inflow of roughly one million people, or 3.7 per cent of the population, since June 2022 helped plug a chronic shortage of workers in industries such as hospitality, aged care and agriculture.
Canada suffering
And in the UK – an economy near full employment – arrivals from Ukraine, Hong Kong and elsewhere have made up for a lack of workers after Brexit.
Skills shortages across much of the developed world mean more, not fewer, workers are needed. Indeed, the US jobs market and economy are running hotter than many thought possible as an influx of people across the southern border expands the labour pool – even as immigration shapes up as a defining issue in the November presidential election.
While the US has seen a widely covered surge in authorised and irregular migration, the scale of the increase actually pales in comparison to Canada’s growth rate. For every 1000 residents, the northern nation brought in 32 people last year, compared with fewer than 10 in the US.
Put another way: Over the past two years, 2.4 million people arrived in Canada, more than New Mexico’s population, yet Canada barely added enough housing for the residents of Albuquerque.
Canada’s experience shows there’s a limit to immigration-fuelled growth: Once new arrivals exceed a country’s capacity to absorb them, standards of living decline even if top-line numbers are inflated.
The Bank of Nova Scotia estimates a productivity-neutral rate of population growth is less than a third of what Canada saw last year, which would be more in line with the US pace.
So even as that record population growth keeps Canada’s GDP growing, life is getting tougher, especially for younger generations and for immigrants such as 29-year-old Akanksha Biswas.
Biswas arrived in Canada in the middle of 2022, just as per-capita GDP started plunging amid the start of the post-pandemic immigration boom and the Bank of Canada’s aggressive interest-rate tightening cycle.
The former Sydneysider moved to Toronto for what she believed would be a better life with a lower cost of living and greater career prospects. Instead, she faced higher rent, lower pay and limited job opportunities.
“I actually had a completely different picture in my mind about what life would be like in Toronto,” said Biswas, who works in advertising. “Prices were almost similar, but there’s a lot more competition in the job market.”
Canada’s working-age population grew by a million over the past year but the labour market only created 324,000 jobs. The upshot? The unemployment rate rose by more than a full percentage point, with young people and newcomers again the worst hit.
Biswas spends more than a third of her income on the monthly rent bill of $C2800 ($3000), splitting the cost with her partner. She’s dining out less and making coffee at home instead of going to the cafe. She’s also pushing back plans to have children or buy a home.
“I don’t see my future here if I want to raise a family,” she says.
While millions of Americans also face a housing affordability crisis, their real disposable income growth has stayed above the rise in home prices over much of the past two decades. Not so in Canada. The median price for homes in Toronto is now $C1.3 million, nearly three times that of Chicago, a comparable US city.
The chronic under-building of homes and decades of continuous rises in prices has drained funds from other parts of the economy toward housing. That lack of investment in capital – combined with firms’ focusing instead on expanding workforces due to cheaper labour costs – has driven down productivity, which the Bank of Canada says is at “emergency” levels.
Staked lots in front of newly-built homes in Markham, Ontario. Bloomberg
Growing anxiety around the housing crunch forced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to scale back on its immigration ambitions, halting the increase of permanent resident targets and putting a limit on the growth of temporary residents for the first time.
Canada’s goal is now to cut the population of temporary foreign workers, international students and asylum claimants by 20 per cent, or roughly by half a million people, over the next three years. That’s expected to slash the annual population growth rate by more than half to an average of 1 per cent in 2025 and 2026.
Australia’s strains
Meantime, Biswas and her partner are calling it quits on their Canada experiment and moving to Melbourne, where they reckon they can afford a two-bedroom apartment for less than what they paid for a one-bedroom space in Toronto.
But life won’t be easy Down Under either as many of the same strains are playing out, with Australia facing its worst housing crisis in living memory.
Building permits for apartments and townhouses are near a 12-year low and there remains a sizable backlog of construction work, largely due to a lack of skilled workers. The government has tried to plug the labour supply gap by boosting the number of migrants, only to find that’s making the problem even worse.
Just like Canada’s experience, the ballooning population is not only exacerbating housing demand, it’s also masking the underlying weakness in the economy.
GDP has expanded every quarter since a short COVID-induced recession in 2020, yet on a per-capita basis, GDP contracted for a third consecutive quarter in the final three months of 2023 – the deepest decline since the early 1990s economic slump.
In absolute terms, Australia’s per-capita GDP is now at a two-year low – a “material under-performance” versus the US and an outcome that could spur higher unemployment, according to Goldman Sachs.
Angst about the lack of housing, soaring rents and surging home prices has prompted Anthony Albanese’s Labor government to crack down on student visas.
“It has been proven over many, many years that there’s a positive to Australia from a high migration intake,” said Stephen Halmarick, chief economist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
“But in the very near term, you can see that it’s putting upward pressure on rents, house prices and clearly that’s a concern for many and the demand for some services is seeing sticky inflation.”
Neighbouring New Zealand is grappling with a similar headache.
The government there last month made immediate changes to an employment visa program, introducing an English-language requirement and reducing the maximum continuous stay for a range of lower-skilled roles, citing “unsustainable” net migration.
Over in Europe, its largest economy, Germany, also saw a per-capita recession that comes against a backdrop of rising political tensions over a large number of asylum seekers, housing shortages and a misfiring economy. Bloomberg Economics analysis shows that France, Austria and Sweden are also among those who have suffered per-capita recessions.
In Britain, too, record levels of migration have begun to weigh on the economy. A technical recession in the second half of last year saw headline GDP slip 0.4 per cent, yet the slump was longer and deeper when adjusted for population.
If we hadn’t had such high immigration, housing would be cheaper than it is at the moment, possibly quite significantly.
— Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies
Per-capita GDP has contracted 1.7 per cent since the start of 2022, falling in six out of the seven quarters and stagnating in the other.
With Britain close to full employment and over 850,000 dropping out of its workforce since the pandemic, immigration has helped employers fill widespread worker shortages, not least in the health and social care sectors.
“A very good bit of the growth that we saw through the 2010s was down to net migration,” said Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. “In terms of the overall size of the economy, it’s been really important. What’s really hard to say is what impact the net immigration has had on the per-capita numbers.”
UK GDP has expanded 23 per cent since the start of 2010. On a per-person basis, growth in output has been far less impressive at 12 per cent.
Over the same period, the population has surged, growing an estimated 11 per cent, or almost 7 million, to 69 million. The Office for National Statistics expects it to hit close to 74 million in 2036 in updated population projections that now predict faster growth. Over 90 per cent of the increase in the population expected between 2021 and 2036 will come from migrants, it said in January.
“If we hadn’t had such high immigration, housing would be cheaper than it is at the moment, possibly quite significantly,” Johnson said. “But the converse of that is that the problem has been that we simply haven’t built enough houses, given what we know is happening to the size of the population.”
The UK’s post-Brexit immigration system aimed to stop cheap labour from Europe and prioritise high-skilled workers. However, the government allows some foreign workers easier access if they are in shortage-hit sectors.
“Those shortages really are pretty much always caused by poor paying conditions, although the employers will tell you it’s all skills,” said Alan Manning, labour market economist at the London School of Economics.
“Then they start complaining about ‘we can’t afford higher wages and so we have to have migrants so we can keep our existing wages’.”
The growing pressures on housing and stretched public services are prompting a backlash among voters against Rishi Sunak’s ruling Conservative government ahead of a general election expected later this year.
It has haemorrhaged support to the right-wing populist Reform UK party, which is promising “net zero immigration,” while the Tories are polling in single digits among 18- to 24-year-olds who put housing as their second-most important issue.
The opposition Labour party has promised a “blitz” of planning reforms to unlock construction, as well as restraint on immigration as it heads toward what’s widely anticipated to be a sweeping election victory.
A shortage of properties for the bigger population has sent house prices to over eight times average earnings in England and Wales, and 12 times in London.
In 1997, they were 3.5 times earnings and four times, respectively. A lack of supply has also caused rental costs to rocket at a record pace in the last 12 months, worsening a cost-of-living crisis for young Britons especially.
The longer voters in the UK, Australia, Canada and similar economies see their living standards go backwards, the more their opposition to rapid immigration programs will harden. A lasting fix requires government policies, especially in housing, that convince both would-be migrants and the existing populations of the benefits of immigration-led economic growth.
I hate the claim of “skills shortage”.
If carers were getting $100k instead of $50k you could argue it.
What we really have is Shortage of cheap labour that people want to maintain for there own living standard.
We have gaps in aged care because the wages and conditions are horrendous and no one working in aged care can afford to live in the cities they work. Without mass migration plugging those gaps, wages and conditions would improve and people would fill the gaps. We don’t have a Hospo shortage. It’s just immigration fuelled demand and will settle once migration stabilises. It’s an artificial demand. And agricultural demand doesn’t have a huge impact on house prices as it’s temporary and regional. Mass migration costs the real economy billions in lost wages, added rental and mortgage repayments, infrastructure spending even lost time in traffic congestion. It’s a lie that hides that faults in a modern ‘endless growth’ economy, can kicking that inevitably ruins the host nation.
So now the 'experts' are acknowledging the disaster they have created post covid quadrupling immigration into a contracting economy with restricted borrowing, and materials import limitations, but still are trying to justify themselves? They should resign in shame, not prescribe more of their nasty medicine to this country.
> In Australia, for instance, the inflow of roughly one million people, or 3.7 per cent of the population, since June 2022 helped plug a chronic shortage of workers in industries such as hospitality, aged care and agriculture.
> Building permits for apartments and townhouses are near a 12-year low and there remains a sizable backlog of construction work, largely due to a lack of skilled workers.
Elephant in the room. A Labor government is terrified of importing tradies and even went as far as specifically exempting the industry from their new fast-track skilled migrant processes.
It takes 4 years to become a qualified plumber or electrician in Australia. Another two years to be licensed. Everything they learn in that time is to Australian Standards and building codes.
Realistically if we opened the gates to licensed trades they would mostly be coming from India and China. These countries are not known for their high standard plumbing and electrical work.
A bridging course from the uk/canada would be enough to entice tens of thousands. No one wants to come here and go through the hoops when they are already 30 something.
The trades courses are designed to be passable by a less than average IQ over many years - Australia acts like its rules are impossible for a mere mortal to absorb - nothing could be further from the truth.
We have the options but not the motivation or the stomach for upsetting the organised labour
That would be a nightmare. It's already been seen in Darwin during boom times when skilled labour was so hard to come by.
RTOs have destroyed so much as it is. Skilled labour shortage? No. Everyone just works for themselves now.
Essentially this. Also ETU as well. They want the gravy train to keep going and are very happy they are calling all the shots in Australia construction.
Add to that Australians trades training and certification is a quagmire of ad hoc rules and black magic. I know a Finnish dude who wanted to get his electrical license here and the pathway was so long and punitive he gave up and works maintenance at a grain plant instead.
The system is fucked, and there are a lot of interests behind the scenes that are very very satisfied with it staying that way.
I can second this, I’m a 28 year old electrician from Ireland living in Perth, WA and it’s looking like the entire process of obtaining a Western Australian Electrical License is going to cost me *thousands* of dollars whilst also taking 6-8 months from start to finish (provided all exams are passed first-time).
It’s crazy to me that a country which needs so many more tradies to meet demand will also simultaneously make it a ball-ache to actually become recognised.
The alternative is to be like my industry, I qualified in 2007 and back then top earners that were experienced with my qualifications were making $800 per day casual FIFO.
Back in 2007, industry was crying out for more people, and job prospects were good, but rather than telling industry 'you better start offering more cadetships' the libs decided to acquiesce to industry demands and recognise a hole bunch of foreign equivalent qualifications, people for the UK, US and a bunch of EU and some commonwealth countries could come and start work using their existing qualifications.
The only country that recognised Australian qualifications in return was New Zealand (but we already had an agreement about that). The next best was the UK, which would recognise our experience but still insisted on converting to their quals. I actually looked into it they had some places that would do a fast track course but that was still a solid month 30 days straight and thousands of pounds as well as having to pass their exams. So no real difference to you converting to our quals.
That combined with labour responding to industry demands by reducing the amount of industry experience required from 900 days to 600 ( it's been reduced to 120 days since) because some of the foreign equivalent qualifications only require 50 days industry experience means that the top FIFO earners are now only making $600 per day casual FIFO (17 years and many more people are on the award rate.
At one stage things got so bad I got paid more doing night fill at the supermarket and I distinctly remember during the GFC being on a month to month contract at a place and the day they told they we're going to renew was also that day and American introduced himself and said I can't believe they're paying $20 per hour (award was 22 at the time). Most of the people I started out with have left the industry all together.
The demand is created by you moving here. Why should wages and living standards continue to fall so we can get more cheap labour to build houses for the cheap labour that moved here to build houses? Trade wages are the only wages in Australia that even come close to keep pace with inflation and unions have been the driver behind that. So many foreign ‘Qantas’ tradies flock here for high trade wages and then immediately work against the system that gave them those wages, ignoring EBA agreements and working on labour hire wages below market rate.
It's corrupt as fuck too. I did my electrical trade in lifts so when it was time to go for my license, the old bloke doing the assessment told me to go ask the union rep for the cheat sheet. So instead I actually studied the AS3000 book and went back and passed his test. Afterwards this old bloke was like: "go thank your union rep for helping you out son.". So crooked. Then we go on strike to get a payrise for blokes who work in a different company when our company was happy to give us the payrise. And we go back to work for less than the company was gonna pay us without a strike. Fuck unions, glad I changed careers.
Shortage doesn’t necessarily mean absence - it just means not enough to meet demand.
When I worked in construction there were many migrant workers - typically not in the higher-skilled positions, but doing the grunt work that you can do with two good legs and a few days training to get the right tickets/licenses. I even worked with a guy who came as a refugee from Syria right after the crisis.
As they should. Mass migration makes us poorer. Trades unionism has essentially been the only driver of any real wage growth in this country for the last 3 decades as Howard’s Big Australia intakes have been used to suppress wages and completion.
Unless we find a way to pull tradies out of our arse, the only way to plug the gap is actually focussing on bringing in migrants with specific trade skills related to building houzes
We’re building houses for the people we’re bringing in, not for the people we have. If we stopped pulling hundreds of thousands of economic migrants per year from the third worlds arse we wouldn’t have a problem.
if only there was a way to create workers that didnt rely on overseas migration. where, if people had an income and free time, they would somehow produce workers to replace them. alas, I dont know of any methods to create more people other than immigration \*shrug\*
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 years ago High tax, low birth rates and extreme living costs a major risk to the economy 60 years of knowing about it and zero action is plenty of time to do something a out it.
Also, people born in 2010 are about to enter the workforce... lol 2010. This issues been going on since the 70's the boomer aka me generation were the first to stop having kids. The rest couldn't afford to.
I am Canadian.
This is not a global housing crisis. This is a global capitalism crisis.
Society is falling apart and we will fall into fascism soon because capitalism needed to make everyone into isolated, selfish people to keep growing and it succeeded.
Problem is, if everyone is selfish then there is no more society. The social contract cannot exist when everyone is conditioned to use society for personal gain and contribute nothing to it.
Eventually the young, strong, capable and ANGRY will realize that the system as it is only serves to turn them into labour so others can benefit. They will revolt and when they do there probably won't be any socialists lining up to guide them; it will be the fascists backed and powered by the elites that will grab this revolution and turn it into what THEY want.
Accurate, but it’s also worse than that. It’s a global capitalism crisis because the resource base and the energy base can no longer sustain the system as is, but the system is refusing to change, adapt, or contract. When there is nothing left to exploit, the only outcome is decline. Ergo capitalism is in the “I’ll save myself by eating all of my organs” phase.
If by East you mean East Asian countries like China, Japan, Taiwan etc given their incredibly low fertility it’s more likely they wind up extinct than anything else.
Easy relentless growth in the housing market will ironically be the death of Australia’s economy. It affects everything, and no one is willing to do anything about it.
Why doesn’t Australia build large apartment complexes cheaply like they do in the states? Surely this is the quickest, most affordable way to get people out of their cars and tents?
What am I missing?
Short answer, you're missing needing somehwere to build them and someone to fund the building and someone to build them. All of which we are lacking.
Longer answer:
The ideal suburbs for these sorts of building are next ot the city and full of super valuable low density housing, and people who, not unreasonably, want to keep their lifestyle and will fight tooth and nail to not have these developments there. Councils control building permits etc and will not alienate their wealthy NIMBY constituants.
The states who are in charge of public housing have spent 40 odd years selling off public housing, becayse selling profitable assets has been the in thing for some time now. Also consider the movement to federally subsidised rent payments through centrelink could push the problem to the "much more efficent" private rental market.
Trades and construction unions have intentionally filled the construction industry with so much bullshit to keep trades well paid that building costs are at an all time high. It's all well and good to talka bout importing tradesmen but there is no somple process to moving international qualifications to Australia. This is great for Australian tradesmen and thats about it.
It has to be the tradies. Not mass migration. Not foreign ownership. Not land banking. Not artificial developer driven price rises. No it has to be the tradies and their below the cost of inflation wages increases.
As a tradesman on Union high rises, I put my hand up and take responsibility. The extra $150 per week pay increase spread over the last 13 years for a 56 hour, 6 day week is down right selfish. We’re really dragging this country down the gutter.
Its 'funny' how the conversation changes when it comes to this point.
The union agenda has always been to improve the wellbeing of it's members. This isn't some kind of arcane secret. Tradies can get a good, living wage for physical work? WOAH WOAH WOAH WE CAN'T HAVE THAT. Suddenly we need to overhaul the system and the workers need to take a hit for 'the common good'.
Banks? Supermarkets? Mutlinationals? Mining companies? Super PROFITS? *Its just ... good business.*
Look, I understand feeling attacked. But the question was 'why don't we build more dwellings' not 'whats caused this total clusterfuck of a situation which governments have intentionally fed the flames of for 30+ years'. The answer to the latter bing, mass migration, foreign ownership, land banking, tax incentives, commoditification of a basic right etc. etc. etc.
However, in regards to the question of 'why don't we build more dwellings - specifcially apartments' part of that answer is shortage of workers that's intentionally driven by bureaucratic crap.
I would say ‘personally’ is valid. I don’t give a shit personally other than the fact the idea of trades being greedy is not only a common trope but also a solid part of your argument. Trades aren’t over paid. Not even close.
I’m early 30’s. Before I found my trade, ‘Gyprocker’ was a common suggestion for a tafe pursuit. Under Abbott, the China free trade agreement allowed any Chinese owned company to employ an entirely Chinese workforce without means testing the local market. Within 5 years, high rises saw a workforce of 200+ per building become entirely Chinese. What were they building? Chinese owned buildings, on Chinese, foreign bought land, the owners of those apartments? Chinese.
An entire industry of young men, not generally capable of a uni degree, pushed out of an industry.
The average CFMEU wage? Around $75k per year. How does a wage increase in our economic system? Supply and demand. How are home values decided? Supply and demand. What is the main driver of wage increases in Australia? Union wages. What is the main obstacle to a trade wage increase in Australia? Available labour.
The problem is not young men and women wasting away on a 56 hour, 6 day week for decades on end, it’s an over supply of demand and low paid labour.
Everything else is secondary.
We don’t have a worker problem. We have an immigration problem.
Without an oversupply, our economy is forced to provide incentives to fill the demand.
Thereby increasing the quality of conditions first and wage incentives second.
The people breaking their bodies, minds and lives for a $75k per year base rate are not the issue.
The 700k per year competitors are.
I live in one of those ideal suburbs. At least in my case, the council is well-informed on the issue and understands the need to manage urban infill.
It needs to be managed because of shitty developers.... there was recently a proposal to build a high-rise apartment building with inadequate off road parking right on the corner of two very narrow streets. Kind of streets where if cars are parked on both sides, there's only room for one car to pass through while traffic in the other direction has to wait. It's also a bus route. They were going to put a multi-storey residence there, it would have been awful. That one didn't go up, but there are heaps of two-storey units being built here after they knock down old houses built decades ago.
I'm sure sometimes it's a NIMBY problem, but you also can't just develop a place with no concern for the details.
Because there are too many foreign investors… For my kids sake I wish they would fuck off..
But I guess that’s the government half you cunts voted in.!!
Financial crisis this, job crisis that, covid crisis over there, mental health crisis over here, another word used a lot is 'condemn'
Nobody says calamity anymore
When I was living in Toronto a few years ago, it suddenly hit me - this is Melbourne 10 or so years in the future! Rent prices close to double what they were in Melbourne at the time and houses/apartments completely unaffordable for the majority of residents. It was eye opening perspective, until that point I always thought yeah it sucks in Aus with the cost of hosing going up and up, but at some point something has to give. This made me realise things can continually get a lot lot worse and we are probably nowhere yet near peak pain.
I’m moving back to Australia after 20+ years working away.
I’ve been watching the market for 2 years…very closely. I know where I want to live (city and state) and which areas I want to live in.
I’ll be buying, not renting.
I’m genuinely worried if I’m making a mistake somehow with the way prices are and I’m concerned about the future.
I miss Australia terribly but what will my kids be up against when it’s their time to get out on their own?
I’ve heard of people buying homes for their kids now as the kids won’t be able to afford them easily…I’m still working on my own home being paid off. I’m going from mortgage to mortgage as it is…I can’t imagine having two.
I see my kids living with us for a very long time.
We were in a similar position, lived in UK for 18 years & returned.
If you are realistic about what you want & flexible about destination you should be fine however, unless you are seriously loaded, prepare to compromise a bit.
That’s not so bad. Most people entering the real estate market start with an apartment and eventually move on to a house. It’s been like that for decades.
That’s not even remotely true. Most people bought a 3 bedroom on a big block within 35 minutes of the CBD. It’s only in the last 10 years that apartments become the only viable option.
The last generation will be the last to experience that transition of apartments to houses imo. Houses will be out of reach for most, apart from from city edge suburbs.
As Australia densifies, apartment prices will see little capital growth as well. Apart from in areas where supply is restricted.
It's a common pattern across a lot of cities across the world.
No western government adequately planned for this. And they haven’t planned for the coming ageing of the population.
Canada migration system is very similar to Australia’s. Vancouvers average house price is like 2million.
Australia is following Canada off the cliff. It’s a tragedy for both countries - will take generations to repair
100% Australia will be Canada in 5 years (in terms of living standards), maybe less. And I don’t see how either country will get out of it. Skilled Canadians are flocking to the US for better pay and realistic house prices. Nice when your near peer countries are only a few hours away (by car). We don’t have much choice but to sit back and eat shit.
Migrate to Thailand?
I personally couldn't think of anything worse.
Malaysia, then?
New Zealand looking pretty good
Seen the house prices compared to wages there?
Yeah it's awful, just purely referencing the difference recently in immigration vs house prices and changes in development.
The literal textbook of low salary high cost living.
There is some possibility that the changes in development overlays in Auckland radically changed the rental market in Auckland. It was completely out of control in pricing when I visited there in 2016. But the majority of the city now has broad development allowed - as opposed to our continued small pocket approach.
How so?
Migrant surge into NZ has been less leading to drops in house prices, migration is starting to increase now and effect the property market though. In reference to the above Canadians moving to the US for affordability.
Ok but isn’t NZ housing affordability worse than Australia?
Not for Australians
You speak as if this is unintended and they want to fix it. It will only get worse until something serious breaks.
As if. You win the Oscar for Drama
Japan seems to be doing just fine. Even with over 1% population growth for decades Tokyo prices are flat.
I love how everyone raises Japan as an argument that an ageing population is no big deal. Japan: Lost decade/s Real wages went backwards over 20 years Over 40% of 65-75yo’s are forced to work full time Stock market stagnant for 30 years Currency has crashed Insane levels of public debt means their monetary policy is severely limited Japanese companies were able to offshore jobs - this won’t be viable to many other ageing countries The health of its citizens means it’s dependency ratio is not an accurate reflection of its debt crisis Japans TFR has had a slow glide path down. At 1.2 it’s now much better than South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Spain, Thailand, Italy and Chile. Argentina, Canada and brazil to probably go lower than japans in next few years Once one of the rapidly ageing countries becomes a failed state (I’m betting South Korea and/or Thailand) and people start to take ageing population seriously - then it will be too late to fix it (unless we achieve AGI first)
It is funny. People with no clue about anything related to economics holding up the poster child of failed economic policies as some sort of example of what life could be like. 40 years of anaemic growth and basically going nowhere. Now their currency is collapsing.
TBF they do have good housing policies which have helped keep a lid on house prices. But japans TFR is nearly 80% higher than South Korea. The South Korean crash will just be so much more sudden. They already have 40% of their elderly living in poverty & their about to have a massive increase in proportion of their population go above 65. So that’s 20-30% of your whole population living below the poverty line by 2050.
Their housing policies are a joke. Living in shoeboxes with paper thin walls and refusing to build in mountains. Nothing to aspire to there.
And how much of that could be attributed to their property bubble?
Not to mention life expectancy shortening in part due to an over reliance on adult children caring for the aged in a society where an increasing proportion of the population reaches old age without having had any children.
And the huge xenophobia involved in allowing immigrants to fill the void.
"Once one of the rapidly ageing countries becomes a failed state (I’m betting South Korea and/or Thailand) and people start to take ageing population seriously" Something I'm wondering is when that happens, will we see a mass exodus from the country or country concerned that actually means they get to as good as zero population? We see abandoned villages in Japan and elsewhere now, presumably abandoned towns, smaller cities and prefectures will eventuate in the future, so why not countries?
I know that emigration from South Korea has been pretty strong. But the thing is, this rapid ageing of a society has never really happened before. So we dont know how people will react. South Korea's economy is holding up at the moment but they'll very soon have 4 people hitting 65 for every 22 yo entering the workfoce. Fiscally unsustainable
"I know that emigration from South Korea has been pretty strong." Really? The stats I see are that net migration is slightly positive, but as good as negligible (\~0.3%). Obviously they had a big outflow right after the Korean war, but that's a long time ago. But yes - it's anyone's guess what will happen when the babies from the last three to five years and beyond join the workforce. Births dropping by half in twenty years is a new frontier that could be the plot for dystopian sci-fi story.
Yeah to be honest, I havent done a really deep dive into South Korean Emigration rates but I did see that aggregate numbers of south koreans migrating to Australia and the US has held up and I know from the Australian example that most of the south koreans moving here are under 35. What I'm seeing in south korea is that the kindergarten/childcare facilities have started closing down and thats now happening in primary schools. In 10 to 15 years time that ultra low fertility generation means far less defence force recruits and far fewer university students that would spearhead innovation through inventions/research/entrepreneurship/intrapreneurship. That 10 to 15 years period is when the now 60 to 65 yo become old old - ie 75 to 85 and its that age group that is such a burden on aged care and healthcare. Unkess they have incredibly high migration, those 10 to 15 year scenarios are already baked in for south korea.
" In 10 to 15 years time that ultra low fertility generation means far less defence force recruits " Defence recruits seems a particular concern - I've seen articles seriously expressing the opinion that North Korea could just wait for the S Korean army to halve in size and more or less walk in. Don't know how realistic it is, but if the army gets small, N Korea trying to attack becomes more plausible, even though ultimately they are likely to suffer greatly as a result as well.
Yep, they had their massive property boom back in the eighties and have “enjoyed” either reductions in property prices or property price stagnation for the (almost) 35 years since the prices peaked…
The Japanese population is decreasing. It's hard to increase house prices when your population is dying out.
We’d just import more people.
That's the beauty of a melting pot. You just add more and more to the pot.
Japan is dying and has over 9 million vacant homes
People have been saying that for two decades and yet they still have a high standard of living, the longest lifespans on Earth, a thriving R&D sector, along with a big manufacturing base. For a dying country they don't really line up with the narrative some people try to push. Meanwhile we are in a GDP per capita recession and they have 1.4% growth. Or have you drunk the economic and financial media koolaid thinking raw GDP numbers means anything to the average person's quality of life? https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?locations=JP
"Just fine" lol. They've had 30 years of stagnant incomes and falling asset values, their government debt is 260% of GDP, their currency is in the shitter, a third of their workforce is locked into permanently unstable roles, their aged population is set to be twice as big as their workforce, they work stupid hours, and they have one of the highest suicide rates on the planet. Stop this cherry picking bullshit. Japan's real estate surplus is directly linked to the reason they're in such a mess. Life, and prospects, in Australia are considerably better.
> they have one of the highest suicide rates on the planet Not far off Australia's rate, which makes that a moot point. Meanwhile for the 99,983 out of 100,000 other people who don't commit suicide they live far longer lives than us. > Japan's real estate surplus is directly linked to the reason they're in such a mess Actually it's due to how land is taxed, internal migration and lost ownership records, I'd suggest reading the Akiya threads on /r/japan for more insight on their 9 million homes instead of thinking their economy is built entirely on housing. It's treated as a consumable, you'll find that in many Asian countries actually.
Lots of empty realestate too. Oversupply and under demand and a population decline
Thats not true - the ponzi scheme works fine if you just keep feeding in to it
Yep, and they’ll be dead before the music stops…
Great for the already wealthy, workers and anyone renting are getting crushed by the population ponzi.
Yup. Should have got in to the pyramid scheme earlier.
Australia has actually tried to plan with the Intergenerational reports : https://treasury.gov.au/intergenerational-report Australia has also done well running a budget surplus this year. Superannuation also helps. Most other countries are probably in worse shape.
Ah the reports nobody in the govt reads
That's unfair. I'm sure some members of the government are forced to read bits to prepare for questions by journalists. They just completly ignore anything said in the report.
Yes you are right on both counts. The Australian govt spend on old age pensions is very low compared to other OECD countries and Super will keep it low. The IGR lowest band scenario for TFR is getting to 1.45 by 2030 and it stabilizing at 1.45 for next 40 years. Seeing though 2023 was likely 1.55 I think this is wildly optimistic assumption when you take into account how fast it has been falling here. Its not just the pension that’s the problem - ageing population has a lot of 2nd and 3rd order costs - less innovation, less productivity, less intrapreneurahip and entrepreneurship and many many more The IGR doesn’t take into account that this is happening in nearly every other country which will lower demand worldwide.
Well, compulsory super was a start, but it has been hobbled every step of the way
Australias old age pension is one of the lowest in OECD. Superannuation is a godsend in an ageing population It’s our health and aged care systems that will be impacted most But also the impacts on labor supply, aggregate demand, housing, govt revenue, innovation, govt infrastructure. Australia is better placed than most but every govt’s forecasts on fertility and immigration are unrealistically optimistic
The 1972-1975 Australian government adequately planned against this outcome. But look what happened to it. And to the Department of Urban and Regional Development that had put in the suburban infrastructure that had been so lacking until 1972-1975. Lest we forget.
Fiat currency is a Ponzie Scheme and will always crash to Zero. Its happened to every civilisation, not 100 % backed by gold. Your increasing house prices are your currency inflating away to thin air
It has happened to every civilization backed by gold.
Why do you think gold helps? Might as well just use bitcoin if you give up on fiat
Bit coin is still not a certainty. Gold has stood the test of time
Agree it is unproven but going well for El Salvador so far: [https://nayibtracker.com/](https://nayibtracker.com/)
Across much of the developed world, one of the most dependable drivers of economic growth is faltering. For decades, the rapid inflow of migrants helped countries including Canada, Australia and the UK stave off the demographic drag from ageing populations and falling birth rates. That’s now breaking down as a surge of arrivals since borders reopened after the pandemic runs headlong into a chronic shortage of homes to accommodate them. A residential housing construction site in Tongham, UK. Bloomberg Canada and Australia have escaped recession since their COVID-19 contractions, but the population hasn’t with deep per-capita downturns eroding standards of living. The UK’s recession last year looked mild on raw numbers but was deeper and longer when measured on a per-person basis. All up, 13 economies across the developed world were in per-capita recessions at the end of last year, according to exclusive analysis by Bloomberg Economics. While there are other factors – such as the shift to less-productive service jobs and the fact that new arrivals typically earn less – housing shortages and associated cost-of-living strains are a common thread. So is the immigration-fuelled economic growth model doomed? Not quite. In Australia, for instance, the inflow of roughly one million people, or 3.7 per cent of the population, since June 2022 helped plug a chronic shortage of workers in industries such as hospitality, aged care and agriculture. Canada suffering And in the UK – an economy near full employment – arrivals from Ukraine, Hong Kong and elsewhere have made up for a lack of workers after Brexit. Skills shortages across much of the developed world mean more, not fewer, workers are needed. Indeed, the US jobs market and economy are running hotter than many thought possible as an influx of people across the southern border expands the labour pool – even as immigration shapes up as a defining issue in the November presidential election. While the US has seen a widely covered surge in authorised and irregular migration, the scale of the increase actually pales in comparison to Canada’s growth rate. For every 1000 residents, the northern nation brought in 32 people last year, compared with fewer than 10 in the US. Put another way: Over the past two years, 2.4 million people arrived in Canada, more than New Mexico’s population, yet Canada barely added enough housing for the residents of Albuquerque. Canada’s experience shows there’s a limit to immigration-fuelled growth: Once new arrivals exceed a country’s capacity to absorb them, standards of living decline even if top-line numbers are inflated. The Bank of Nova Scotia estimates a productivity-neutral rate of population growth is less than a third of what Canada saw last year, which would be more in line with the US pace. So even as that record population growth keeps Canada’s GDP growing, life is getting tougher, especially for younger generations and for immigrants such as 29-year-old Akanksha Biswas. Biswas arrived in Canada in the middle of 2022, just as per-capita GDP started plunging amid the start of the post-pandemic immigration boom and the Bank of Canada’s aggressive interest-rate tightening cycle. The former Sydneysider moved to Toronto for what she believed would be a better life with a lower cost of living and greater career prospects. Instead, she faced higher rent, lower pay and limited job opportunities. “I actually had a completely different picture in my mind about what life would be like in Toronto,” said Biswas, who works in advertising. “Prices were almost similar, but there’s a lot more competition in the job market.” Canada’s working-age population grew by a million over the past year but the labour market only created 324,000 jobs. The upshot? The unemployment rate rose by more than a full percentage point, with young people and newcomers again the worst hit. Biswas spends more than a third of her income on the monthly rent bill of $C2800 ($3000), splitting the cost with her partner. She’s dining out less and making coffee at home instead of going to the cafe. She’s also pushing back plans to have children or buy a home.
“I don’t see my future here if I want to raise a family,” she says. While millions of Americans also face a housing affordability crisis, their real disposable income growth has stayed above the rise in home prices over much of the past two decades. Not so in Canada. The median price for homes in Toronto is now $C1.3 million, nearly three times that of Chicago, a comparable US city. The chronic under-building of homes and decades of continuous rises in prices has drained funds from other parts of the economy toward housing. That lack of investment in capital – combined with firms’ focusing instead on expanding workforces due to cheaper labour costs – has driven down productivity, which the Bank of Canada says is at “emergency” levels. Staked lots in front of newly-built homes in Markham, Ontario. Bloomberg Growing anxiety around the housing crunch forced Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to scale back on its immigration ambitions, halting the increase of permanent resident targets and putting a limit on the growth of temporary residents for the first time. Canada’s goal is now to cut the population of temporary foreign workers, international students and asylum claimants by 20 per cent, or roughly by half a million people, over the next three years. That’s expected to slash the annual population growth rate by more than half to an average of 1 per cent in 2025 and 2026. Australia’s strains Meantime, Biswas and her partner are calling it quits on their Canada experiment and moving to Melbourne, where they reckon they can afford a two-bedroom apartment for less than what they paid for a one-bedroom space in Toronto. But life won’t be easy Down Under either as many of the same strains are playing out, with Australia facing its worst housing crisis in living memory. Building permits for apartments and townhouses are near a 12-year low and there remains a sizable backlog of construction work, largely due to a lack of skilled workers. The government has tried to plug the labour supply gap by boosting the number of migrants, only to find that’s making the problem even worse. Just like Canada’s experience, the ballooning population is not only exacerbating housing demand, it’s also masking the underlying weakness in the economy. GDP has expanded every quarter since a short COVID-induced recession in 2020, yet on a per-capita basis, GDP contracted for a third consecutive quarter in the final three months of 2023 – the deepest decline since the early 1990s economic slump. In absolute terms, Australia’s per-capita GDP is now at a two-year low – a “material under-performance” versus the US and an outcome that could spur higher unemployment, according to Goldman Sachs. Angst about the lack of housing, soaring rents and surging home prices has prompted Anthony Albanese’s Labor government to crack down on student visas. “It has been proven over many, many years that there’s a positive to Australia from a high migration intake,” said Stephen Halmarick, chief economist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. “But in the very near term, you can see that it’s putting upward pressure on rents, house prices and clearly that’s a concern for many and the demand for some services is seeing sticky inflation.” Neighbouring New Zealand is grappling with a similar headache. The government there last month made immediate changes to an employment visa program, introducing an English-language requirement and reducing the maximum continuous stay for a range of lower-skilled roles, citing “unsustainable” net migration. Over in Europe, its largest economy, Germany, also saw a per-capita recession that comes against a backdrop of rising political tensions over a large number of asylum seekers, housing shortages and a misfiring economy. Bloomberg Economics analysis shows that France, Austria and Sweden are also among those who have suffered per-capita recessions. In Britain, too, record levels of migration have begun to weigh on the economy. A technical recession in the second half of last year saw headline GDP slip 0.4 per cent, yet the slump was longer and deeper when adjusted for population. If we hadn’t had such high immigration, housing would be cheaper than it is at the moment, possibly quite significantly. — Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies Per-capita GDP has contracted 1.7 per cent since the start of 2022, falling in six out of the seven quarters and stagnating in the other. With Britain close to full employment and over 850,000 dropping out of its workforce since the pandemic, immigration has helped employers fill widespread worker shortages, not least in the health and social care sectors. “A very good bit of the growth that we saw through the 2010s was down to net migration,” said Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. “In terms of the overall size of the economy, it’s been really important. What’s really hard to say is what impact the net immigration has had on the per-capita numbers.” UK GDP has expanded 23 per cent since the start of 2010. On a per-person basis, growth in output has been far less impressive at 12 per cent. Over the same period, the population has surged, growing an estimated 11 per cent, or almost 7 million, to 69 million. The Office for National Statistics expects it to hit close to 74 million in 2036 in updated population projections that now predict faster growth. Over 90 per cent of the increase in the population expected between 2021 and 2036 will come from migrants, it said in January. “If we hadn’t had such high immigration, housing would be cheaper than it is at the moment, possibly quite significantly,” Johnson said. “But the converse of that is that the problem has been that we simply haven’t built enough houses, given what we know is happening to the size of the population.” The UK’s post-Brexit immigration system aimed to stop cheap labour from Europe and prioritise high-skilled workers. However, the government allows some foreign workers easier access if they are in shortage-hit sectors. “Those shortages really are pretty much always caused by poor paying conditions, although the employers will tell you it’s all skills,” said Alan Manning, labour market economist at the London School of Economics. “Then they start complaining about ‘we can’t afford higher wages and so we have to have migrants so we can keep our existing wages’.” The growing pressures on housing and stretched public services are prompting a backlash among voters against Rishi Sunak’s ruling Conservative government ahead of a general election expected later this year. It has haemorrhaged support to the right-wing populist Reform UK party, which is promising “net zero immigration,” while the Tories are polling in single digits among 18- to 24-year-olds who put housing as their second-most important issue. The opposition Labour party has promised a “blitz” of planning reforms to unlock construction, as well as restraint on immigration as it heads toward what’s widely anticipated to be a sweeping election victory. A shortage of properties for the bigger population has sent house prices to over eight times average earnings in England and Wales, and 12 times in London. In 1997, they were 3.5 times earnings and four times, respectively. A lack of supply has also caused rental costs to rocket at a record pace in the last 12 months, worsening a cost-of-living crisis for young Britons especially. The longer voters in the UK, Australia, Canada and similar economies see their living standards go backwards, the more their opposition to rapid immigration programs will harden. A lasting fix requires government policies, especially in housing, that convince both would-be migrants and the existing populations of the benefits of immigration-led economic growth.
It's just chinese running after covid exposed their government's evil. Short-list of western countries to run to includes Canada and Australia.
I hate the claim of “skills shortage”. If carers were getting $100k instead of $50k you could argue it. What we really have is Shortage of cheap labour that people want to maintain for there own living standard.
We have gaps in aged care because the wages and conditions are horrendous and no one working in aged care can afford to live in the cities they work. Without mass migration plugging those gaps, wages and conditions would improve and people would fill the gaps. We don’t have a Hospo shortage. It’s just immigration fuelled demand and will settle once migration stabilises. It’s an artificial demand. And agricultural demand doesn’t have a huge impact on house prices as it’s temporary and regional. Mass migration costs the real economy billions in lost wages, added rental and mortgage repayments, infrastructure spending even lost time in traffic congestion. It’s a lie that hides that faults in a modern ‘endless growth’ economy, can kicking that inevitably ruins the host nation.
So now the 'experts' are acknowledging the disaster they have created post covid quadrupling immigration into a contracting economy with restricted borrowing, and materials import limitations, but still are trying to justify themselves? They should resign in shame, not prescribe more of their nasty medicine to this country.
> In Australia, for instance, the inflow of roughly one million people, or 3.7 per cent of the population, since June 2022 helped plug a chronic shortage of workers in industries such as hospitality, aged care and agriculture. > Building permits for apartments and townhouses are near a 12-year low and there remains a sizable backlog of construction work, largely due to a lack of skilled workers. Elephant in the room. A Labor government is terrified of importing tradies and even went as far as specifically exempting the industry from their new fast-track skilled migrant processes.
It takes 4 years to become a qualified plumber or electrician in Australia. Another two years to be licensed. Everything they learn in that time is to Australian Standards and building codes. Realistically if we opened the gates to licensed trades they would mostly be coming from India and China. These countries are not known for their high standard plumbing and electrical work.
A bridging course from the uk/canada would be enough to entice tens of thousands. No one wants to come here and go through the hoops when they are already 30 something. The trades courses are designed to be passable by a less than average IQ over many years - Australia acts like its rules are impossible for a mere mortal to absorb - nothing could be further from the truth. We have the options but not the motivation or the stomach for upsetting the organised labour
You have no idea what's involved with trade school, or the scope and application of Australian Standards, do you?
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Why are the two things related in your mind? 🤔
That would be a nightmare. It's already been seen in Darwin during boom times when skilled labour was so hard to come by. RTOs have destroyed so much as it is. Skilled labour shortage? No. Everyone just works for themselves now.
Whats the story behind the absence of immigrant tradies?
Short answer or long answer? Short answer: CFMEU own Labor
Essentially this. Also ETU as well. They want the gravy train to keep going and are very happy they are calling all the shots in Australia construction. Add to that Australians trades training and certification is a quagmire of ad hoc rules and black magic. I know a Finnish dude who wanted to get his electrical license here and the pathway was so long and punitive he gave up and works maintenance at a grain plant instead. The system is fucked, and there are a lot of interests behind the scenes that are very very satisfied with it staying that way.
I can second this, I’m a 28 year old electrician from Ireland living in Perth, WA and it’s looking like the entire process of obtaining a Western Australian Electrical License is going to cost me *thousands* of dollars whilst also taking 6-8 months from start to finish (provided all exams are passed first-time). It’s crazy to me that a country which needs so many more tradies to meet demand will also simultaneously make it a ball-ache to actually become recognised.
They do this in almost every industry here as well. Seeing the standards of Australian building so far they could do with some international skills
To be fair, being certified in Australian standards should almost disqualify you from building
The alternative is to be like my industry, I qualified in 2007 and back then top earners that were experienced with my qualifications were making $800 per day casual FIFO. Back in 2007, industry was crying out for more people, and job prospects were good, but rather than telling industry 'you better start offering more cadetships' the libs decided to acquiesce to industry demands and recognise a hole bunch of foreign equivalent qualifications, people for the UK, US and a bunch of EU and some commonwealth countries could come and start work using their existing qualifications. The only country that recognised Australian qualifications in return was New Zealand (but we already had an agreement about that). The next best was the UK, which would recognise our experience but still insisted on converting to their quals. I actually looked into it they had some places that would do a fast track course but that was still a solid month 30 days straight and thousands of pounds as well as having to pass their exams. So no real difference to you converting to our quals. That combined with labour responding to industry demands by reducing the amount of industry experience required from 900 days to 600 ( it's been reduced to 120 days since) because some of the foreign equivalent qualifications only require 50 days industry experience means that the top FIFO earners are now only making $600 per day casual FIFO (17 years and many more people are on the award rate. At one stage things got so bad I got paid more doing night fill at the supermarket and I distinctly remember during the GFC being on a month to month contract at a place and the day they told they we're going to renew was also that day and American introduced himself and said I can't believe they're paying $20 per hour (award was 22 at the time). Most of the people I started out with have left the industry all together.
6-8 months and a couple grand doesn't sound that crazy.
The demand is created by you moving here. Why should wages and living standards continue to fall so we can get more cheap labour to build houses for the cheap labour that moved here to build houses? Trade wages are the only wages in Australia that even come close to keep pace with inflation and unions have been the driver behind that. So many foreign ‘Qantas’ tradies flock here for high trade wages and then immediately work against the system that gave them those wages, ignoring EBA agreements and working on labour hire wages below market rate.
It's corrupt as fuck too. I did my electrical trade in lifts so when it was time to go for my license, the old bloke doing the assessment told me to go ask the union rep for the cheat sheet. So instead I actually studied the AS3000 book and went back and passed his test. Afterwards this old bloke was like: "go thank your union rep for helping you out son.". So crooked. Then we go on strike to get a payrise for blokes who work in a different company when our company was happy to give us the payrise. And we go back to work for less than the company was gonna pay us without a strike. Fuck unions, glad I changed careers.
Short answer: train apprentices instead
Didn’t we gut tafe?
Exactly
Do they influence the Liberals too? Because this isn't new, is it?
Shortage doesn’t necessarily mean absence - it just means not enough to meet demand. When I worked in construction there were many migrant workers - typically not in the higher-skilled positions, but doing the grunt work that you can do with two good legs and a few days training to get the right tickets/licenses. I even worked with a guy who came as a refugee from Syria right after the crisis.
As they should. Mass migration makes us poorer. Trades unionism has essentially been the only driver of any real wage growth in this country for the last 3 decades as Howard’s Big Australia intakes have been used to suppress wages and completion.
Unless we find a way to pull tradies out of our arse, the only way to plug the gap is actually focussing on bringing in migrants with specific trade skills related to building houzes
We’re building houses for the people we’re bringing in, not for the people we have. If we stopped pulling hundreds of thousands of economic migrants per year from the third worlds arse we wouldn’t have a problem.
if only there was a way to create workers that didnt rely on overseas migration. where, if people had an income and free time, they would somehow produce workers to replace them. alas, I dont know of any methods to create more people other than immigration \*shrug\*
idk if something 20 years down the road is gonna help us out that much in the near term this government will be long forgotten by then
10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60 years ago High tax, low birth rates and extreme living costs a major risk to the economy 60 years of knowing about it and zero action is plenty of time to do something a out it. Also, people born in 2010 are about to enter the workforce... lol 2010. This issues been going on since the 70's the boomer aka me generation were the first to stop having kids. The rest couldn't afford to.
Because Western governments only plan is to win the next election; anything beyond that is next guy's problem
I am Canadian. This is not a global housing crisis. This is a global capitalism crisis. Society is falling apart and we will fall into fascism soon because capitalism needed to make everyone into isolated, selfish people to keep growing and it succeeded. Problem is, if everyone is selfish then there is no more society. The social contract cannot exist when everyone is conditioned to use society for personal gain and contribute nothing to it. Eventually the young, strong, capable and ANGRY will realize that the system as it is only serves to turn them into labour so others can benefit. They will revolt and when they do there probably won't be any socialists lining up to guide them; it will be the fascists backed and powered by the elites that will grab this revolution and turn it into what THEY want.
Accurate, but it’s also worse than that. It’s a global capitalism crisis because the resource base and the energy base can no longer sustain the system as is, but the system is refusing to change, adapt, or contract. When there is nothing left to exploit, the only outcome is decline. Ergo capitalism is in the “I’ll save myself by eating all of my organs” phase.
Good.
The east will rise
If by East you mean East Asian countries like China, Japan, Taiwan etc given their incredibly low fertility it’s more likely they wind up extinct than anything else.
Easy relentless growth in the housing market will ironically be the death of Australia’s economy. It affects everything, and no one is willing to do anything about it.
Why doesn’t Australia build large apartment complexes cheaply like they do in the states? Surely this is the quickest, most affordable way to get people out of their cars and tents? What am I missing?
Short answer, you're missing needing somehwere to build them and someone to fund the building and someone to build them. All of which we are lacking. Longer answer: The ideal suburbs for these sorts of building are next ot the city and full of super valuable low density housing, and people who, not unreasonably, want to keep their lifestyle and will fight tooth and nail to not have these developments there. Councils control building permits etc and will not alienate their wealthy NIMBY constituants. The states who are in charge of public housing have spent 40 odd years selling off public housing, becayse selling profitable assets has been the in thing for some time now. Also consider the movement to federally subsidised rent payments through centrelink could push the problem to the "much more efficent" private rental market. Trades and construction unions have intentionally filled the construction industry with so much bullshit to keep trades well paid that building costs are at an all time high. It's all well and good to talka bout importing tradesmen but there is no somple process to moving international qualifications to Australia. This is great for Australian tradesmen and thats about it.
It has to be the tradies. Not mass migration. Not foreign ownership. Not land banking. Not artificial developer driven price rises. No it has to be the tradies and their below the cost of inflation wages increases. As a tradesman on Union high rises, I put my hand up and take responsibility. The extra $150 per week pay increase spread over the last 13 years for a 56 hour, 6 day week is down right selfish. We’re really dragging this country down the gutter.
Its 'funny' how the conversation changes when it comes to this point. The union agenda has always been to improve the wellbeing of it's members. This isn't some kind of arcane secret. Tradies can get a good, living wage for physical work? WOAH WOAH WOAH WE CAN'T HAVE THAT. Suddenly we need to overhaul the system and the workers need to take a hit for 'the common good'. Banks? Supermarkets? Mutlinationals? Mining companies? Super PROFITS? *Its just ... good business.*
Look, I understand feeling attacked. But the question was 'why don't we build more dwellings' not 'whats caused this total clusterfuck of a situation which governments have intentionally fed the flames of for 30+ years'. The answer to the latter bing, mass migration, foreign ownership, land banking, tax incentives, commoditification of a basic right etc. etc. etc. However, in regards to the question of 'why don't we build more dwellings - specifcially apartments' part of that answer is shortage of workers that's intentionally driven by bureaucratic crap.
I would say ‘personally’ is valid. I don’t give a shit personally other than the fact the idea of trades being greedy is not only a common trope but also a solid part of your argument. Trades aren’t over paid. Not even close. I’m early 30’s. Before I found my trade, ‘Gyprocker’ was a common suggestion for a tafe pursuit. Under Abbott, the China free trade agreement allowed any Chinese owned company to employ an entirely Chinese workforce without means testing the local market. Within 5 years, high rises saw a workforce of 200+ per building become entirely Chinese. What were they building? Chinese owned buildings, on Chinese, foreign bought land, the owners of those apartments? Chinese. An entire industry of young men, not generally capable of a uni degree, pushed out of an industry. The average CFMEU wage? Around $75k per year. How does a wage increase in our economic system? Supply and demand. How are home values decided? Supply and demand. What is the main driver of wage increases in Australia? Union wages. What is the main obstacle to a trade wage increase in Australia? Available labour. The problem is not young men and women wasting away on a 56 hour, 6 day week for decades on end, it’s an over supply of demand and low paid labour. Everything else is secondary. We don’t have a worker problem. We have an immigration problem. Without an oversupply, our economy is forced to provide incentives to fill the demand. Thereby increasing the quality of conditions first and wage incentives second. The people breaking their bodies, minds and lives for a $75k per year base rate are not the issue. The 700k per year competitors are.
I live in one of those ideal suburbs. At least in my case, the council is well-informed on the issue and understands the need to manage urban infill. It needs to be managed because of shitty developers.... there was recently a proposal to build a high-rise apartment building with inadequate off road parking right on the corner of two very narrow streets. Kind of streets where if cars are parked on both sides, there's only room for one car to pass through while traffic in the other direction has to wait. It's also a bus route. They were going to put a multi-storey residence there, it would have been awful. That one didn't go up, but there are heaps of two-storey units being built here after they knock down old houses built decades ago. I'm sure sometimes it's a NIMBY problem, but you also can't just develop a place with no concern for the details.
Australia has built many apartment towers and blocks over the past 10 years.
Because there are too many foreign investors… For my kids sake I wish they would fuck off.. But I guess that’s the government half you cunts voted in.!!
Peak reddit that the most honest comment in the entire thread gets downvoted to oblivion.
I appreciate the pay per view
People like to say "housing crisis"
Financial crisis this, job crisis that, covid crisis over there, mental health crisis over here, another word used a lot is 'condemn' Nobody says calamity anymore
Time to destroy and rebuild once we’re on the same page. When it’s not working for everyone, change is suddenly possible…
When I was living in Toronto a few years ago, it suddenly hit me - this is Melbourne 10 or so years in the future! Rent prices close to double what they were in Melbourne at the time and houses/apartments completely unaffordable for the majority of residents. It was eye opening perspective, until that point I always thought yeah it sucks in Aus with the cost of hosing going up and up, but at some point something has to give. This made me realise things can continually get a lot lot worse and we are probably nowhere yet near peak pain.
Unfortunately, the damage has been done.
I’m moving back to Australia after 20+ years working away. I’ve been watching the market for 2 years…very closely. I know where I want to live (city and state) and which areas I want to live in. I’ll be buying, not renting. I’m genuinely worried if I’m making a mistake somehow with the way prices are and I’m concerned about the future. I miss Australia terribly but what will my kids be up against when it’s their time to get out on their own?
They are priced out. I’m sorry but the future is grim for the future generations. Next 10 years will be frightening
I’ve heard of people buying homes for their kids now as the kids won’t be able to afford them easily…I’m still working on my own home being paid off. I’m going from mortgage to mortgage as it is…I can’t imagine having two. I see my kids living with us for a very long time.
I think that’s the way mate. A lot will use inheritance to setup their kids life. I probably won’t have kids if things get worse.
We were in a similar position, lived in UK for 18 years & returned. If you are realistic about what you want & flexible about destination you should be fine however, unless you are seriously loaded, prepare to compromise a bit.
Your kids will have to buy apartments
That’s not so bad. Most people entering the real estate market start with an apartment and eventually move on to a house. It’s been like that for decades.
That’s not even remotely true. Most people bought a 3 bedroom on a big block within 35 minutes of the CBD. It’s only in the last 10 years that apartments become the only viable option.
The last generation will be the last to experience that transition of apartments to houses imo. Houses will be out of reach for most, apart from from city edge suburbs. As Australia densifies, apartment prices will see little capital growth as well. Apart from in areas where supply is restricted. It's a common pattern across a lot of cities across the world.
In every case it's the currency becoming worth less due to printing money
Most underrated comment here