The Western Australian Government is offering a $10,000 relocation bonus to lure tradies from Australia’s eastern coast to move out west, in a bid to help build more homes.
Currently battling a severe worker shortage across most essential trades, the WA government feels the cash bait boost will reel in brickies, electricians, plasterers, and carpenters to work in the state’s residential construction sector.
Set for an announcement within weeks, the plan could present a lifeline for WA, which has been hammered by the housing crisis and is experiencing some of the greatest housing pressures nationwide.
WA’s recent population boom has strained the local housing supply, with sky-high rental prices, limited availability, and over 20,000 people now on the government’s social housing list.
According to Build-it’s analysis, 220 of 297 suburbs within Geater Perth currently have a vacancy rate of less than 1.5 per cent, while property prices across 90 suburbs have risen by more than 25 per cent in the last year alone.
Recent estimates suggest that WA needs 120,000 skilled tradespeople in the coming decade to resolve its housing problem, with specialised trades like tiling, plastering, and carpentry in particularly high demand.
And with housing industry experts vocal about the severe tradie shortage hampering the state’s ability to keep up with home construction demand, the state government believes the cash incentive could help to build up WA’s skilled workforce.
“WA has got the best jobs market, lifestyle and economy in the nation — and we’re going to be calling out to residential construction tradies across the country to take up the opportunities on offer here in WA,” Training and Workforce Development Minister Simone McGurk confirmed.
“We’re constantly looking at new ways to work with industry to boost our building and construction workforce and get more boots on the ground so we can get homes built sooner.”
Industry leaders back plan
The Property Council of WA has long been pushing for the $10,000 incentive to lure tradies out west, already meeting with senior government officials to discuss the plan.
Executive Director Nicola Brischetto noted that the shortage of skilled labour was among the biggest obstacles to scaling up home building speeds in WA.
“Offering $10,000 cash incentives for skilled construction workers to cross the Nullarbor is a drastic move. Unfortunately, however, we need drastic intervention if Western Australia is going to build its way out of the housing crisis,” Brischetto said.
“Western Australia simply does not have enough workers in the residential construction market to build the homes we need. The state’s housing sector does experience tough and unique challenges in attracting skilled labour. It is competing against a high-paying mining sector and an extensive public infrastructure program for tools on the ground.”
Brischetto emphasised that WA’s rapidly growing population and ultra-low unemployment rate are key challenges for the sector, which needs a substantial workforce boost to reach its target of 26,000 new homes annually.
“The residential construction sector completed 17,700 in the 2023-24 financial years. Bringing more skilled construction workers into the state is essential to solving our housing crisis.”
“These problems aren’t going away anytime soon; Western Australia has the country’s fastest growing population and lowest unemployment rate.”
WA Housing Industry Association’s boss, Michael McGowan, echoed those sentiments, noting that expanding the skilled trade base would help meet targets, stabilise costs, and reduce project times.
“The greatest challenge to reaching this target is the volume of builders and our skilled trade base,” McGowan said.
“Dramatically boosting this workforce stabilises cost pressures, reduces construction times and makes more medium and high-density projects viable to commence construction.”
“Incentivising interstate trades is a key lever that the State Government should be looking to pull to dramatically increase the size of the residential construction industry.”
“Skilled trades not only improve the productivity of the current workforce but are likely to host apprentices and help develop WA’s talent for the future.”
No deal say tradies
Despite the generous cash offer and WA’s popular lifestyle, some tradies told us it would take more than $10,000 to consider moving out west.
Queensland-based sparkie Dustin Parker told Build-it that it didn’t take a genius to hammer out the cash incentive, which wasn’t worth it unless you were already considering a move to WA.
So you expect me to stop work, uproot my entire life, pay to move everything to WA, and struggle to find a place to live or rent, all for $10,000? – I will lose money,” he said.
“Unless you already plan on going, I don’t see his as being much of an incentive.”
“Even in the time it would take to move, being out of work for a few weeks would cost me that much alone.”
