The Cost of Letting Productivity Slip

Master Builders Australia has released The Cost of Letting Productivity Slip, which assesses the cumulative impact of positive and negative changes in the industry over the next five years.

The built environment is crucial to maintaining and enhancing our living standards but can only be achieved through productivity growth.

The delivery of new homes and related infrastructure has been obstructed by ongoing and concurrent challenges, including labour shortages, industrial relations reforms, economic uncertainty, and material price escalations.

Master Builders has commissioned the Centre for International Economics to assist in the development of this report.

The report identifies the productivity conundrum faced by the industry and reforces the long-held positon of Master Builders that impacts need to be viewed on a cumuliative basis as opposed to silos.

An optimistic and conservative approach has been taken with this research given the multitude of variables that can impact the building and construction industry. Given the scale of change occurring in the industry, including ever-changing legislation and regulation, it has been determined that this research will be produced annually over the next three years to analyse the impact of ongoing government policy reform and macroeconomic impacts on the cost of building and productivity in the sector.

The report complements Master Builders’ bi-annual building and construction sector forecasts, with this first edition focusing on housing. Future editions of this report will consider other parts of the industry.