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ABC News
18 hours ago
- Business
- ABC News
Workforce shortages the key roadblock to state government's 'Made in WA' future
Economic experts have endorsed the WA government's future-focused budget, but warned a tight labour market could be its biggest roadblock. Thursday's state budget represented a shift in the government's focus, from transport projects and cost-of-living relief to infrastructure spending to kick-start diversification of the state's economy. About 40 per cent of government infrastructure investment over the next four years is earmarked for so-called enabling infrastructure, like electricity transmission and ports. "There's global economic turmoil," Treasurer Rita Saffioti said of the shift in focus. "We need to make sure we protect Western Australia and help Western Australia grow into the future. "We don't want WA to be collateral damage in global economic chaos." Raymond Da Silva Rosa studies what drives corporate investment at the University of Western Australia and backed the government's plans to try and increase productivity across the state. "We have a budget that's in surplus, we have an economy that's booming, we have a state government that has pretty much total control of the political agenda," he said. "So all the pieces are in place for the government to take some considerable risks that other governments can't afford to." One missing piece though, he said, is likely to be workforce — largely because the mining industry remaining successful leaves few workers for other industries. Chief economist for the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia, Cassanda Winzar, agreed. "There's a real argument to be had there for spreading some of the spend out and looking at what the biggest priorities are," she said. "So looking at some of that infrastructure around the energy transition, but also really looking at our housing situation. "If people can't get houses here there's not really going to be much investment and much desire for new industries to grow and develop here in WA." That backing from the private sector will be critical to making the government's vision a reality — because without businesses changing where and how they spend money, the shape of the economy won't change. Saffioti used an address to a business breakfast yesterday to encourage them to back the government's plans. "We're here, ready to work with industry, making sure we can deliver on our commitments," she said. Asked later in the day what would happen if businesses didn't change their spending, the treasurer said the combination of providing initial infrastructure and capital with long-term government purchase agreements was attractive to industry. "I think there's a lot of excitement, and just speaking to a few people today, I think that there's a real willingness," she said. Despite the broad support, Ms Winzar and Professor da Silva Rossa questioned the government's focus on manufacturing as a priority area, beyond a few niche industries. "We're a very high-cost state, labour-wise, in a high-cost country," Ms Winzar said. "Manufacturing across Australia is always going to be challenging. "It's particularly challenging in WA when we've got competing demands for labour from industries such as mining." Professor da Silva Rosa said there were strengths the government should try to leverage, which could be enhanced by boosting the quality of primary and secondary education. "The services sector is the one that dominates, so it's more about high-end services, like medical services, computers and the like, engineering services," he said. For its part, the opposition continues to argue payroll tax is an unnecessary roadblock to economic growth. Payroll tax is paid to the state government by all businesses whose wage bill exceeds $1 million each year, and is expected to bring in $6.2 billion next financial year. "WA businesses face a disincentive when they hire people," Shadow Treasurer Sandra Brewer said. "Our payroll tax, particularly for small businesses, are the highest in the country." She made the case alongside Jay Sidhu, who owns a land surveying business and said the tax had influenced his thinking as demand for his services grew. "Me and my business partners have to consider it before we even think of growing," he said. Ms Brewer said those costs were often passed directly on to customers. "So what we're saying is, the government could help housing affordability by looking at all of the taxes on business, and seeing where they can reform," she said. Asked at the business breakfast if a Labor government was ever likely to consider changes to payroll tax, Ms Saffioti said: "Every budget we consider everything." "But also it's about the approvals process," she said. "So we're working across the breadth of the economy to [see] what we can do in relation to supporting industry and business." Ms Winzar said that was another area which needed to be looked at closely to attract investment to the state. "What often happens in WA is we have really good small businesses and they're looking to expand, and they feel like they can't do it in WA because they don't have access to the right resources, to get the right labour," she said. "The tax and regulation settings don't encourage them to grow here, so they leave either for interstate or overseas. "We really want to encourage all those businesses to stay, to grow here, and other businesses to come setup here."
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sustainability platform Watershed launches free global emissions database
This story was originally published on ESG Dive. To receive daily news and insights, subscribe to our free daily ESG Dive newsletter. Watershed, a sustainability software startup, has launched a free version of its global emissions database, the Comprehensive Environmental Data Archive, to help companies 'address critical gaps in emissions reporting data to inform more impactful climate action.' The startup — which helps companies measure, report and reduce their carbon footprint — unveiled Open CEDA last week and said the database covers 148 countries, 400 industries and 95% of the global gross domestic product. Open CEDA considers 60,000 emissions factors when evaluating a company's footprint, provides annual updates on a company's decarbonization progress and measures emissions in compliance with the GHG protocol, per its website. Watershed's platform takes data directly from companies' systems to create an 'audit-ready' carbon footprint report and supports businesses in understanding their climate disclosure obligations. The sustainability startup currently manages around 1 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent across its portfolio, according to its website, which is almost double the volume it was managing last year. Watershed had reported managing around 479 million tonnes of carbon equivalent in February 2024. The company has a 2030 goal of collaborating with its customers to reduce or remove 500 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere, which accounts for nearly 1% of annual global emissions. Watershed's current client list includes BlackRock, Bain Capital, Carlyle, KKR, Visa, Walmart, FedEx, Etsy, Paramount and others. 'Simply put, better data leads to better decisions,' Watershed Co-Founder Christian Anderson said in a May 22 release. 'By opening up CEDA to the public, we hope to give organizations of all sizes a more accurate foundation from which to make critical choices about their sustainability action.' Watershed said it will continue to offer clients a paid version of CEDA as well. The version includes additional features, such as breakdown of emissions categorized by scopes 1, 2 and 3, and a comprehensive analysis that helps companies understand differences in emission factors, among other offerings. The company said Open CEDA is recommended for 'organizations or companies measuring for the first time,' whereas CEDA is recommended for 'more advanced sustainability programs and service providers,' per its website. Last year, Watershed secured $100 million during a Series C funding round, which it said would allow it to continue developing climate programs for clients and redouble its investments in Europe. The financing was led by San Francisco-based investment firm Greenoaks and raised the company's valuation to $1.8 billion at the time. Recommended Reading Climate software startup Watershed clinches $100M in funding
ABC News
27-05-2025
- Business
- ABC News
Small businesses are making building homes more expensive, CEDA report warns
Australian housing costs have surged, due in part to a shortage of homes relative to a rapidly increasing population. But what if you could build 12 per cent more homes each year than we are currently with no extra workers? Both the federal government's Productivity Commission and the Committee for Economic Development in Australia (CEDA) believe that is possible by improving efficiency in the construction sector. "The Productivity Commission has found that, even when adjusting for size and quality improvements, construction labour productivity per hour worked has declined by around 12 per cent since 1994, and still significantly underperformed the wider economy, which experienced labour productivity growth of around 49 per cent over the same period," noted CEDA economists Melissa Wilson and James Brooks. In a report released by CEDA today, the two economists argued that the commonly blamed suspects of industrial relations and workplace conditions in the building sector are not among the key drivers of this productivity decline. They argue the key culprits include complex and slow building approvals processes, a lack of innovation, skills shortages and a lack of scale. It is the latter issue they focused on in their report. "There are currently 410,602 construction firms in Australia, of which 98.5 per cent are small businesses with fewer than 20 employees," they observed. "Ninety-one per cent of construction firms are microbusinesses with fewer than five employees, up significantly from 43 per cent in 1988/89." This makes construction one of the least concentrated industries in Australia, with these micro and small firms accounting for more than half of the money spent on building work in Australia. Yet they achieve far less output than the small number of larger construction firms. "We found that Australian construction firms with 200 or more employees generate 86 per cent more revenue per worker than Australian construction firms with five to 19 employees," CEDA's economists noted. "If firms in the Australian construction industry matched the size distribution of firms in the manufacturing industry, the construction industry would produce 12 per cent, or $54 billion, more revenue per year without requiring any additional labour. "This is equivalent to gaining an extra 150,000 construction workers." Not that all experts agree that smaller building firms are inherently less efficient than large operators. "I do not agree with the conclusion that big is the answer," wrote former NSW building commissioner David Chandler on LinkedIn in response to the report. "The Tier1 contractors in Australia are mostly foreign owned and amongst the most risk adverse and expensive players." However, in their paper, Ms Wilson and Mr Brooks noted that overseas research has produced similar findings about the overall productivity benefits of larger firms. "Researchers have found a strong connection between firm size and productivity in US residential construction, where firms with 500 or more employees produce six times as many units per employee than firms with fewer than 20 employees, and firms with 100 to 499 employees are twice as productive," they wrote. So why are smaller construction firms so much less efficient than larger ones? Ms Wilson and Mr Brooks concluded that smaller firms are less able to achieve economies of scale. "Consultation with CEDA members and other industry experts has confirmed that the construction industry tends to be fragmented, insular and lacking incentives to adopt new ways of doing things," they argued. "They have less capacity to innovate, to invest in equipment and technology, and to devote to training and capability building, which are all important drivers of productivity growth." The economists said the boom-bust cycles prevalent in construction seemed to have accelerated the trend towards using subcontractors, and therefore the dominance of smaller firms and independent contractors. "As subcontracting fragments the industry, this has likely increased the time and effort spent on procurement, contract negotiations, supervision and regulation, and dispute resolution," they noted. "Our consultation has identified reworks and disputes as a major source of inefficiency in the sector." So, if smaller operations are so much less efficient than larger ones, why have they proliferated? The authors say perverse incentives in the federal tax system are a major suspect. "Being self-employed can result in paying less tax than a salaried employee earning the same pre-tax income," they observed. "Our analysis of HILDA income data for people working at least 30 hours per week shows around 8.5 per cent of independent contractors in the construction sector disclose income under the tax-free threshold of $18,200, and therefore pay no tax, compared with just 2 per cent of salaried construction workers. "A high-income construction worker earning $148,000 per year would pay 26 per cent tax as a salaried worker. As a contractor, they could structure their income with a discretionary trust and a 'bucket' company and pay just 18 per cent tax — a difference of $12,400 in annual-take home pay after tax. "Additionally, in trust structures, a high-income individual can distribute income across household members, who may pay even lower tax rates. Or, in rare cases, contractors can simply misrepresent their income and avoid tax altogether." Not to mention that small businesses have been able to access an instant asset write-off that further cuts their taxes, when they buy things like tools or utes. Independent economist Saul Eslake said the "excellent report" identified some of the costs of what he labels "small business fetishism". "Small business fetishism refers to the widespread (and bi-partisan) belief that there is something inherently more noble about running a small business than working for a big one, a government or a not-for-profit, and that therefore small business operators should pay less tax on any given amount of income, and enjoy preferential treatment in many other respects, than people earning wages or salaries, large businesses, and others less 'noble'," he wrote on his LinkedIn page. Aside from income tax minimisation, the authors also identified complex and localised building approvals processes, state-based trades licensing, and the lack of a stable workflow due to the demise of the public housing sector as factors preventing the growth of more large construction firms. "To encourage scale, governments should: They also noted that reduced planning regulation appeared to be correlated with an increase in construction productivity in Auckland.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
$30K grant helps Hayfield update park
May 21—The City of Hayfield has announced that it has been awarded $30,000 from the Taylor Family Farms Foundation to assist with updates to the Earl B. Himle Memorial Park. The grant will bring with it a transformational component and will add more than 565 additional feet of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant concrete walking paths to connect the newly updated playground area to the parking lot and the sidewalks around the park. The additional paths will also extend the pad outside of the bathrooms to provide wheelchairs more room to turn around when going in and out of the restrooms. This addition will make the park restrooms fully ADA compliant. Additional updates to the park restrooms include the coating of the floors with epoxy floor coating to prevent potential slips and falls, and a 60-gallon water heater that will allow the bathrooms to remain open to the public during the colder months of the year for year-round use. The exterior of the structure will also be fitted with an ADA compliant water fountain that also offers a water bottle filler for reusable bottles. The addition of two handicap parking spaces to the existing parking lot will bring the total number of these dedicated spaces from two to four. Final additions to the park will include five blue powder painted benches which will be strategically installed at or near the volleyball courts and playground equipment. Updates will be coming to the park this summer. Earl B. Himle Memorial Park is host to the city's public pool, basketball court, baseball field and concession stand, two sand volleyball pits, horse shoe pits, playground equipment, and two modern shelters with water and electricity. The city's EDA Director and CEDA representative, Rebecca Charles, has been working with the city on park updates and grants over the past few years.
Herald Sun
29-04-2025
- Business
- Herald Sun
The future is hybrid: Why WFH is a win for Aussies and saving businesses money
Australia is now among the global leaders in hybrid work adoption, with levels stubbornly remaining higher than before the pandemic, despite efforts by some employers to force staff back into the office. Speaking at a Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) event on Tuesday, Stanford University Professor Nick Bloom said work-from-home rates had stabilised across English-speaking countries, including Australia, with hybrid arrangements firmly taking hold. 'The big picture I want to tell you is, one, work from home has kind of stabilised. There has not been a return to the office,' Professor Bloom said. 'The reason it's there is hybrid has turned out to be very profitable for firms.' Research shows that 80 per cent of Fortune 500 companies have committed to hybrid models after trials showed no loss in productivity and a 35 per cent drop in staff turnover, cutting recruitment costs and improving retention. A new CEDA report reveals that Australians working from home since the pandemic are saving an average of 3.4 hours a week on commuting, translating to an annual time and cost saving of $5308. The research also shows a 4.4 per cent rise in workforce participation, with remote workers often clocking nearly 20 per cent more hours. This shift has particularly benefited groups previously hindered by on-site work, such as parents and those with health conditions. Professor Bloom said hybrid working would stay in Australia because it made financial sense. A landmark six-month randomised control trial involving 1600 employees at travel giant found no decline in productivity when staff worked two days remotely each week, but quit rates fell by 35 per cent. 'Every person that quits costs us about $50,000 because we've got to go out, readvertise, reinterview, retrain, re-get up to speed,' he said. 'Hybrid is phenomenally profitable.' Several high-profile businesses have forced workers back into the office in the past year, including Tesla and Amazon in the US, while in Australia, Tabcorp and the NSW government have also ended flexible arrangements. Opposition leader Peter Dutton has vowed that under a Coalition government public servants would be forced back into the office five days a week. He later back flipped as the gap between worker and employer expectations continues to widen. Professor Bloom warned that companies failing to manage hybrid work well risk losing employees to firms that offer better flexibility. Poorly executed policies — such as those without co-ordinated in-office days — could drive chief executives to abandon hybrid altogether. 'A good law is an easy-to-enforce law,' he said. 'Set a sensible plan — maybe three days in the office, co-ordinate on fixed days, and then stick to it.' CSIRO chair Ming Long, speaking at the same event, said hybrid work was crucial for building operational resilience in an era of climate disruption, pandemics and other shocks. 'I want to have that level of resilience in the organisation to adapt to whatever catastrophe or whatever thing is going to disrupt the organisation,' Ms Long said. 'That muscle needs to exist well into the future.' She said organisational culture would be critical in ensuring teams could switch rapidly between home and office in the face of unexpected disruptions. 'If you're always just working in the office, then the level of resilience in the organisation to adapt to whatever catastrophe or whatever thing is going to disrupt the organisation will disappear. That muscle needs to exist, and it needs to exist into the future,' Ms Long said. The rise of remote work has also had profound impacts on cities and real estate markets. Professor Bloom said spending and populations had shifted to the suburbs, while central business districts remained less populated than before the pandemic. 'People moved out of city centres into the suburbs,' he said. 'Traffic patterns are better. Sandwich shop demand is down in the city centre but way up in the suburbs.' While office occupancy is sitting at about 60 per cent of pre-pandemic levels, Professor Bloom said the narrative of a commercial real estate collapse was overblown. 'It turns out that those three days tend to be Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and it's actually very hard to share offices,' he said. Professor Bloom said about 20 per cent of workers never wanted to work from home — typically younger employees who valued social connection — while about 30 per cent wanted to work remotely full-time, usually older workers with young families. 'There's no one-size-fits-all,' he said. 'As long as you stick with it as a company … over time your employees are going to adjust.' Ms Long said leaders who failed to adapt their management styles for hybrid workforces would be left behind. 'If you do not know, as a leader, how to lead in hybrid, then maybe you are not the leader for the organisations of the future,' she said. Originally published as The future is hybrid: Why WFH is a win for Aussies and how it's saving businesses money
