In 2022, the federal government and state and territory governments signed the National Housing Accord — a commitment to deliver 1.2 million new, well-located homes between 2024 and 2029. It is one of the most ambitious residential construction targets Australia has set in decades.
It is not on track.
By July 2026 — just two years into the five-year programme — Australia was already 147,413 homes behind the Accord's required trajectory of 20,000 completions per month. That is not a rounding error. At current rates, the cumulative shortfall by 2029 will be well in excess of 300,000 homes.
The policy response has focused heavily on planning reform — streamlining approvals, rezoning land, and reducing the time from application to permit. These are real constraints, and addressing them matters. But planning reform alone does not build houses. Workers do.
The workforce gap is structural, not cyclical
Master Builders Australia and the HIA have both documented a construction workforce shortage that predates the Housing Accord and has been compounded by it. The shortage is not simply a function of demand spiking — it reflects structural issues in the pipeline of trained, available construction workers.
Apprenticeship completions in the building trades have not kept pace with the workforce required for the Accord's targets. Registered training organisations have not had the capacity to process the volume of new entrants needed. Retention of experienced workers — particularly in civil and residential construction — has been pressured by project cost blowouts, stop-start programmes, and the fatigue that follows sustained high workloads.
Infrastructure Australia's workforce pipeline modelling has flagged consistent shortfalls in civil construction workers, concreters, formworkers, and site supervisors across multiple states — not in the future, but now, in the projects currently underway. These are not numbers being projected forward. They are gaps in live project delivery.
What happens to projects that can't mobilise fast
A development approval is not a house. Neither is a cleared site, a poured slab, or a framed wall. The gap between approval and completion is where workforce availability determines whether a project hits its programme or not.
When a project is ready to move and the labour is not available, the consequences compound quickly. Subcontractors who are booked out push dates back. Plant and equipment sits idle. Crane bookings get missed. Fixed-price contract margins erode with every week of delay. And when labour eventually arrives, it often arrives in a sequence that does not match the programme — creating downstream problems that take months to resolve.
Rider Levett Bucknall and other quantity surveying firms have documented significant cost escalation on construction projects in the current environment, with labour availability cited alongside material costs as a primary driver. A project that delays mobilisation by four weeks in a tight labour market does not catch up those four weeks. It delays completion, which delays revenue, which affects the next project's start.
For site managers and construction business owners, this is not a macro-economic observation. It is what Monday morning looks like when three workers did not show up and the concreters are arriving at 7am.
The projects that keep moving have the supply relationship sorted
There is a consistent pattern among construction businesses that manage through workforce shortages better than their competitors: they have a labour supply relationship that can respond fast, not one that requires them to start from scratch each time a project ramps up.
That relationship is not about having a phone number. It is about working with a provider who knows your sites, knows your standards, has already verified the workers they are sending, and can move quickly when you need bodies on site. The time it takes a labour hire firm to find, screen, and place a worker is time your project is not moving. A provider who already knows the answer to those questions can cut that time significantly.
It also means the workers who arrive are the right workers. Not just anyone with a White Card and a willingness to show up — workers who have been skill-checked against what your specific project requires: the right machinery tickets, the right experience in civil or residential or commercial, the right understanding of site safety requirements.
What the Accord's shortfall means for the next three years
The Housing Accord's 2029 deadline has not changed. The political pressure to demonstrate progress on housing supply has not diminished. That means the construction pipeline for the next three years is going to be heavy — heavier, in some states, than the industry has managed in recent memory.
South Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland are each carrying significant residential and civil construction programmes. The SA government's infrastructure pipeline, the NSW housing delivery acceleration, and the SEQ growth corridor development are all competing for the same pool of available construction workers. Businesses that wait until a project is ready to move before thinking about where their workers are coming from will find themselves in a very difficult market.
Businesses that have their labour supply sorted — that have a provider who knows their requirements and can mobilise quickly — are going to be better placed to hold programme, manage costs, and take on the next project with confidence.
EIR Labour Hire: moving when you need to move
EIR Labour Hire has been supplying workers across civil, construction, manufacturing, and warehousing since 2003. Proudly SA-owned and operated, with workers placed across South Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland.
Every worker we place — labourers, operators, tradespeople, and admin support — is employed directly by EIR. We check qualifications, verify tickets, and confirm the right fit for your site before placement. When you call us, we move. That is what the next three years of construction demand requires.
The Housing Accord has put a number on what Australia needs to build. The question for every construction business is whether their workforce supply chain can keep up.