Renovation boom: Bay of Plenty home owners splurge with overseas holiday funds
24 Jan, 2021 05:00 PM
5 minutes to read
The Renovators Painters and Decorators operations manager Claudio Valenzuela. Photo / Caroline Fleming
Bay homeowners are splurging on renovations spending up to $1 million gutting their house with some tradies struggling to meet demand. Overseas travel budgets were also being used to fund projects and experts in the industry say they are flat out busy as people look to add value to their properties - or remodel outdated kitchens and bathrooms.
One company expected this year could be its biggest ever as people elected to spend money saved for overseas travel on home renovation projects.
Bricklayer shortage could blow out timelines for housing, taking advantage of HomeBuilder
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A shortage of bricklayers could mean longer build times for West Australians.
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A shortage of bricklayers is expected to blow out construction times for thousands of West Australians who have signed up to build new homes.
Key points:
For years companies have struggled to attract young people to work in wet trades like bricklaying and plastering.
With construction ramping up in Western Australia, there are concerns there won t be enough bricklayers to go around.
The expected shortage is expected to push out construction deadlines by several weeks.
 FOUL-mouthed tirades and sexists slurs will be stamped out on construction sites in a zero-tolerance crackdown on the outdated and unlawful behaviour. Construction watchdog Australian Building and Construction Commission boss Stephen McBurney says highly-offensive, highly-sexist behaviour will not be tolerated and will be prosecuted. I absolutely reject this notion that the building and construction industry should be held to a different standard than other workplaces in Australia, or that giving someone a highly offensive, highly sexist spray is acceptable, he said. We also have an issue of a relatively low proportion of construction workers being female and it s unacceptable for them to be exposed to this type of behaviour.
Why more women are trading up It’s not just office jobs that have been shaken up by COVID. The pandemic may be responsible for big changes to blue collar work too.
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Subscriber only More women are joining the construction industry, with new figures showing 16.5 per cent growth for the sector. Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that in the twelve months to November the number of women employed in the construction sector grew from 8933 to 10,409 - an increase of 1476. The growth means that 13.8 per cent of workers in the industry are now female - the third highest proportion in the nation.