It’s heartening to see a promising bounceback in construction following Melbourne’s second lockdown as the number of jobs per company on Fergus software platform reached pre-COVID levels in November.
With this accompanying a 3.3% rise in GDP over the last quarter, Australia’s economy and construction industry are so far poised for recovery.
During March and April, Victoria’s 2020 jobs were higher than in 2019 due to an influx of home improvement jobs during the initial lockdown period.
This continued as Victorians saw more freedom in May, June and into the beginning of July before a sharp decrease in trade work when the second lockdown restricted the number of workers that could be on site.
As restrictions have lifted, so has the job creation number, putting trades businesses back to work at a time when they’re usually winding down for the year.
The data shows that tradies are having a strong end to a difficult year. The Federal Government’s HomeBuilder program, which had seen 7,636 applications in Victoria on November 20 – more than any other state – is likely to be playing a role in the recovery.
We are really encouraged by this latest data. This has been a really turbulent year for tradies – for all small business owners. To see new jobs being generated faster than at any point this year in the period after Stage 4 lockdown is great news for our trades, our customers, our families and our economy.
There are a lot of families out there who aren’t going to have the same kind of Christmas that they usually do because tradies are going to be catching up on the work that has been lost throughout the year.
A recovering housing market and healthy infrastructure pipeline will hopefully keep demand for construction strong in the early months of 2021, helping our industry power an economic recovery from a very difficult year.
By David Holmes
CEO
Fergus Job Management Software for Trades Businesses