darbyogill

Moved to Perth approximately three weeks ago, four Irish bricklayers at the minute working for $250 per day. Thought the money would have been better, thought there would have been plenty of overtime. Doing five days per week with an early friday, tried for about forty jobs with no luck before we found this one. On the whole think Australians sort of view us as cheap labour, paying Aussie brickies that do two days work the same rate as ourselves. Hopefully it will get better and our families will get the opportunity to come over when people realise how hard it is to get on your feet.

jad n rich

Theres loads of crap written on forums about tradies getting mega bucks and loads of work in OZ.

There are also loads of brickies/tradies who have tried to tell people the reality however I dont think many take notice as its not what they want to believe.

250 a day is what aussies are paid too, unless they are the subcontractor and all that involves... You could advertise for brickies or carpenters etc now and get 40 blokes turn up easily.

I wouldnt be making any decisions on dragging your family out here till you have worked in summer and seen if you can handle working in up to 42 degree heat, weeks of no wages for Xmas shutdown and delays.

Dorothy

Of course Australians see you as cheap labour. Isn't that what you see immigrants to Ireland as?

saintstu

$250 is roughly about £150 a day, which is in line with what we're paying in the England at the moment. Not sure about in Ireland, but I understand there's no work there anyway.

If you want to see about other work (or even just to check if the rate you are getting is correct) try calling Hays Recruitment in Perth. The consultant to speak to is called Jade.

Buzzy--Bee

$65,000 per year if you consider there are 260 working days in the year. Plenty of people here are paid a lot less than that. I'm not sure you'll get any sympathy here.

BB

Weebie

65k in Perth is the equivilant of earning 45k in Melbourne.

Buzzy--Bee

And what do you base that theory on? Are Perth wages 1.5 times Melbourne ones

BB

cornishexpat

I wouldnt take any information you get from hays recruitment as the norm as They dont pay EBA rates,you would be better off contacting the union(if your in one).
Most brickies here though are not in a union and work under an ABN.

Weebie

They don't see you as cheap labour but they will see you as doing the jobs that Australians don't do. Ask the Irish youngsters in Perth how much luck they have picking up the Perth girls. Not much as most Perth girls come from good backgrounds and will expect a partner who is educated and earning a significant salary. The european girls will be more willing to give you a chance lol.

easty1976

Fair enough but how many of those bust their balls all week outside in temperatures of 40 ish degrees, wearing long pants, long sleaves etc... ?

perksy

How many bricks a day are you slashing in for that?

I take it you aren't aware alot of Aussie brickies won't employ Irish?

There are plenty of brickie jobs offering up to 350 but your gonna have to work like a dog that kind of cash throwing in up to 1000 bricks a day.

munch

My husband has a team of brickies. All of them will tell you (English, Irish and Welsh lads) it takes a long time to get any recognition here.

Everyone seems to start on the bottom of the ladder, no matter what experience you have. Usually 2 years WA experience is needed to get any bricklaying job, I lost count of how many people put the phone down on my husband when we first got here looking for work. Its not just brickies all the trades have to start over most having to gain licenses to work.

jad n rich

Problem there is if you tell people in UK that working here is like that, they persist in the belief working in this climate is a 'dream'. oohh wouldnt it be lovely to work outside in that beautiful OZ climate. Err yeah

easty1976

Yeah I agree, I suppose there is more to emigration than the work you do though and the carrot for many is not to be able to work outside in the sun but rather the weekend activities and outdoor lifestyle that Australia brings. You can see however why there as been a shortage of tradies, the reality of working here is very different to what you could imagine(especially for folks back home as you say) the pay is not great and working outside in exposed areas with the sun blaring down all day is harsh to say the least and to top it off the introduction on many sites of long pants and sleaves etc... just makes matters worse.

Amazulu

Hope it works out for you. Shit money but probably better than you could get in Ireland at the moment. Ireland has been in the news for all the wrong resons recently. It's basically f**ked and broke. It's going to take years to come back and even then might never be the same.

As others have said on this thread, Ireland has looked at immigrants as cheap labour for years - Australia is no different.

Good luck.