Wednesday 7th April 2021

Building sector has significant trade and product shortage. 

The ABC has reported that near-record new home approvals are putting intense pressure on supply chains and sparking construction delays within Australia's building sector.

With the largest growth in 20 years, 13,527 new homes have been approved, which has seen a 91.8 per cent jump over the previous month.

Industry experts have put the rapid increase down to a combination of the federal government's HomeBuilder Grants, spikes in interstate migration, and low-interest rates.

While builders are the busiest they have ever been, they struggle to keep up with the demand, and new home builders are being forced to wait months due to delays.

Master Builders Queensland deputy chief executive officer Paul Bidwell said, 'he was concerned the fallout of the current situation may lead to some builders going broke.'

He stated, 'we just need to get through these next few months hopefully without too much pain for the builders and their clients.'

The original story can be found on the ABC website.

Guidance for employers in preventing work-related fatigue injuries. 

Fatigue is an acute and ongoing state that leads to physical, mental or emotional exhaustion and prevents people from performing safely. Working with intense mental or physical effort, long hours can cause fatigue, which can have long-term health effects.

WorkSafe Victoria identifies three categories of fatigue: physical, mental and emotional.

• Physical fatigue can be identified as physical exhaustion which reduces the ability to engage in physical activities, such as manual labour.
• Mental fatigue can lead to mental exhaustion and a reduced ability to engage in cognitive functions, such as decision making.

Emotional fatigue can present as emotional exhaustion with a reduced ability to engage in emotional activities, such as caring for others.

Fatigue can also result from imbalances between the demands of a job, and the physical, mental or emotional exertion required to perform a task., Insufficient mental and physical recovery time between shifts may also cause workers to become fatigued.

To download the guide on how to prevent workplace injuries caused by fatigue, click here.

For more information on this topic, head to the WorkSafe Vic website.