No Issue With Bricks, It’s the Tradies
While the national construction sector is struggling with constrained supply of timber and steel, there’s still plenty of bricks in the supply chain.
The problem is there are not enough bricklayers to lay them.
In fact, the sector is facing a dearth of labourers of all types—and the issue will only be exacerbated by the two-week halt to construction in Victoria announced last week.
Housing Industry Association chief economist Tim Reardon says there have been periodic building material shortages this year, with timber rather than bricks the big issue.
“That’s taken time to resolve and hopefully we’ll see an easing of timber shortages towards the end of this year,” he says.
“But bricks are made almost exclusively in Australia. We do import some bricks from overseas, which tend to be high-end, artistic-style products, and shortages are fairly common, even in a normal year.
“Constraints on international shipping are causing disruptions to trade, impacting all imported building products.
“So any perceived shortage of bricks reflects more the impact of lockdowns on freight and trade, rather than a structural problem with supply of bricks.
“The construction sector is booming, but when I say that to brick suppliers they ask, ‘when’s it coming? We’ve increased our capacity and we’re making bricks in anticipation of rising demand, but we can’t see this in our operations’. So there’s ample capacity.
“From that point onwards, the boom in home construction will slow. By the end of 2022, the number of homes under construction will be back to normal.”
Brett Lavaring from The MJH Group, which operates brands across Australia including McDonald Jones Homes, Mojo Homes, Brighton Homes, Weeks Homes and Wilson Homes, confirms there is ample supply of bricks but “we are seeing some challenges securing a labour force to lay bricks across Queensland, NSW, South Australia and Tasmania.”