The Westies

Any british tradies on the sunshine coast, with licence still having problems getting contract work? Loving the life style but the work situation is really becoming a drag. Phoned round to be told by a few that they will not employ poms. Has anyone come across this?? Others promise to get back to you but never do. O/H is carpenter with 24 years experience aswell as supervising, project management, site management and general building, and is still finding it difficult with all this experience.

painter man

Can't help but will watch this post with interest

darrellandsarah

this don,t sound good as i,m a chippy 21years experiance and arriving in october.hope you find work soon

Sonn

Oh no...Doesnt sound good. I too will be watching thr replies!

magic.no7

Its different now for your hubby he will have to muck in and get himself about, Aussies are fair dinkem if you have a go but are not going to give anything away. They wont phone back, get down the club or pub find the site you are phoning. I have similiar probs but lesser with contacts, remember your OH has 20+ years of solid contacts and zilch in aus.
Good luck,
It,ll be right

jad n rich

Building starts in the whole of australia are on the decline,due to high interest rates, massive costs in building products, massive infulx of immigrants due to bloody Rudd still claiming the industry has a shortage of workers :curse: its a quite time all over. Many projects are being put back, on hold or simply not startng. One of ours in caboolture canned the second stage of units, one in Brisbane is simply not proceeding till economy improves. Lot of doom and gloom in the australian news is giving developers the heeby jeebies, despite the fact there is a massive housing shortage in many areas especially SE qld. The result of that is eventually there is going to be another massive boom of building and round we go again.

For now, my son is a spark hes english and works from noosa to brisbane, thats a normal radius for a tradesperson in se qld. My aus partner prices work from hervey bay to the gold coast, a normal radius for a buidling contractor. Thats in good or bad times, in melb he had a 2 hour radius from the city its a normal thing here to look for work over a big area and commute, of course petrol costs now take another chunk out of income.

To break into the game look for work over a bigger radius, you have a valid licence that is on your side, theres a few here with fake licence nos at the moment and if BSA gets wind there will be a big crackdown and fines. Also carpenters usually work in gangs, unless its odd job work, framing etc usually a gang of 2, and like building work in the UK a lot of it is who you know. Get down the pub and meet aussies. I dont know of poms having a bad rap here till recently, plenty of pom tradies about, but recently the fake lic thing and undercutting aussies might have rattled a few cages.

The Westies

Thanks for the comments, I have been here long enough now to realise that you need to get out there and put your name about either at the pub or at the site, but this is not just a situation with me alone. I have spoken to a lot of UK tradies on the coast and they are all saying the same sort of thing in fact some of them are not even bothering going into the trades they have been in for years but are going to work in other sectors, which I personally find a very sad state of affairs. I am intrigued at the fake licence thing as I have not heard of this before, but I can also understand why some of these people are doing it as the process to get your licence is now such a load of hassle and red tape and takes on average 4 months if things go to plan ( the new part of our assessment is that you have to actually construct a hand cut roof, this has to be video taped and the tape sent to the assessor). The other comments about UK tradies undercutting the Aussies is another thing I have not heard about as most of the people I talk to are actually outraged at the way the Aussies will pay an outsider LESS for doing the same job as one of there own, which again is the normal thing on the coast so I am told, and from my own experience is to a certain degree true. I actually did some work for one company and they would not pay any more than $30.00 per hour to the few Brits on site although we found out they were paying the Aussies $35.50 per hour for the same work, and to be honest the Brits actually produced a lot more work in a day.

The Bournes

Oh is a chippy with just under 20 years experience in all aspects. In UK he was self employed but sub contracted, which eventually he wants to do here, but we are aware that all the licence stuff and ABN's take time so we didnt wnat to mess about with all that yet. We live in Peregian, just south of Noosa, there's plenty of building work going on, that will also last years. After our first 4 weeks, he started driving around all the sites, any jobs he phoned up were just $22 per hour start!! So after about 2 days, he eventually came across a huge site that build exclusive houses, work on the site there for 5 years. He was given a job, employed but as casual, no one employs permanent in building, start $30, he was put with the apprentices first 2 days, other crap jobs for next week, then as their trust grew, they gave him better jobs, now on $33 (that is the most on sites anywhere near Noosa), foremen on $35, and they think he is great. They put him on certain good jobs as they dont trust anyone else to do them. They've got rid of 2 ozzies for not pulling weight, but want OH to stay. He loves it so we've been really lucky i guess, but we feel we had to start somewhere, and yes $33 is crap to live here as so expensive, but we are here, love it and he thinks the work is actually more rewarding than in the UK. If you are struggling to get self emp. work, why dont you think about working for a large building contractor, you work under their licence then, or you will have to just go to sites and keep asking all the gangs if they need you. But gangs are just small companies, so there will be limited chippies required.