DEMITONResearch / Cost drift statistics / No published national figure for the cost of labour productivity below plan on Australian civil work
No published national figure for the cost of labour productivity below plan on Australian civil work
This figure is outside your filter. Clear the filter.
No published national figure for the cost of labour productivity below plan on Australian civil work: no defensible figure has been published (Infrastructure Australia, 2025; Australia; low confidence).
What it is. None - no Australia-wide source read states labour hours above need, or lost productivity, as a cost or as a share of project or contract cost on a basis that can be defended.
Sample. Search terms: construction labour productivity Australia; overstaffing; hours over budget; labour cost share of cost overrun; productivity gap cost per project; Productivity Commission construction productivity; Infrastructure Australia productivity; ABS multifactor productivity construction. Nine sources opened. Rates exist but are not costs, so the schema has no unit for them: construction multifactor productivity (-0.8 growth in IA 2024; a 2022-23 fall then +2.0% in 2023-24 in IA 2025); gross value added per hour worked in housing construction (not all construction) down 12% since about 1995 against up 49% for the economy (Productivity Commission); output per construction worker down 25.4% since 2013 (RLB). Dollar totals exist only for the whole economy ($56 billion and $62 billion a year of capacity or work, two consultancies' models).
What it is not. Recorded as none on purpose: no defensible Australia-wide figure for the cost of more hours than the work needed was found, not that none exists. The Roads Australia 30% was left out because nothing shows what it measures; it is an unsourced member claim.
Where it came from
- Infrastructure Australia (2025), 2025 Infrastructure Market Capacity Reportp.57 (summary: construction multifactor productivity rose 2.0% in 2023-24); p.61 (no consistent project-level data on subcontracting and self-performance) · source record
Considered and set aside
- Infrastructure Australia: Reports construction multifactor productivity growth of -0.8 (p.60) and that labour is about two-thirds of land transport construction cost (p.7, no source for it). A productivity growth rate and a cost share: no cost of hours above need.
- Australian Constructors Association: ABS multifactor productivity indexes for construction against other industries, and an Oxford Economics estimate that reaching the economy-wide average would unlock $56 billion of construction capacity a year. An economy-wide counterfactual of capacity, not a cost on any contract.
- Oxford Economics Australia: Estimates stagnant productivity costs Australia $62 billion a year in lost work across all construction. A modelled opportunity cost for the economy; the full report was not read and no share of a project's cost is stated.
- Rider Levett Bucknall Oceania: RLB's own series: since 2013 workers up 26.5%, hours per worker down 2.0%, output per worker down 25.4%; the Productivity Commission's 1.8% fall in construction labour productivity in 2022-23. Productivity rates for all construction, not money.
- Productivity Commission: Dwelling construction completes about half as many homes per hour as in the mid-1990s, and quality-adjusted gross value added per hour is 12% lower. Housing, and a rate, not a cost on civil work.
- Roads Australia: Members say delays and a poor working environment add 30% to total project costs. A lobby group's statement with no sample, method or definition; it mixes delay and site conditions with labour productivity, so it is not filed.
- Australian Constructors Association and Arcadis: Survey of the largest contractors: rising labour costs and stagnant productivity cited as raising costs; skilled trades up about 5% on average. Perceptions of rates of change; no cost of hours above need, no sample size.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics: Labour costs are 21.35% of total expenses for heavy and civil engineering (filed as context). The size of the labour cost base, not hours above what the work needed.
- Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics (BITRE): Labour is 31.79% of road construction cost (Table B2, filed as context). A cost composition; nothing on productivity.