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Melbourne Building Sector Job Losses Up
Dylan Lautner
Melbourne , June 3, 2009 - Melbourne's commercial construction industry is experiencing the effects of the downturn with job losses up by 2000 in the past year. According to the industry's redundancy payment fund IncoLink, the employment in the sector dropped significantly from 39,109 a year earlier to 37,133 this April.
Master Builders Association is foreseeing a further drop in jobs with relatively fewer projects in the pipeline. "This is the beginning of a larger downturn for the commercial construction sector in Victoria, which has long been heralded," said MBA executive director Brian Welch. "The significant number of projects that have stalled or been abandoned due to lack of funding is well known in the industry, and it is widely expected that there will be more significant job losses."
"Builders have been struggling to refill their order books going forward and, with the time lags involved, we haven't yet seen the significant job shedding the approvals data indicates will be coming through," says Welch.
The industry downsizing is also expected to hit the supply line, particularly concrete batching plants and office outfitter. Welch says that "for every dollar you spend on a building site, it has an economic multiplier of 2.9 to the economy in stimulation of jobs, materials, services, the whole thing."
It is estimated that employees and contractors involved in the early part of commercial projects would be the hardest hit by job losses, this would include positions for architects, consultants, estimators, surveyors and earth movers.
Author Site
6/4/2009
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