Employment in carpentry forecast update – March 2018
One of the key inputs to workforce development planning is information about total employment in a sector and how this is forecast to change in the future. In 2016 BCITO produced a Workforce Development Plan for Carpentry. This was updated in 2017 with new forecast information.
In March 2018 Infometrics has done their annual forecast update. This has three key pieces of new information – actual employment data for 2017, revised forecasts for 2018 – 2021, and a forecast for 2022.
Employment has grown strongly across the NZ economy in 2017 and Infometrics is expecting this to continue over the next few years. Forecasts for 2018 – 2022 have been revised upwards, driven in particular by strong employment demand in the construction sector. However, employment growth will be slower in the later forecast years due to capacity constraints.
The impact this update has on Carpentry is shown and outlined below.
Key changes compared to last year’s forecast:
- In 2017, 90,595 people were employed in Carpentry. This is 1,114 people or 1.2% less than forecast.
- Employment forecasts for 2018 – 2021 are higher than in the previous set of forecasts.
- The year 2022 has been added to the forecasts. Employment is expected to increase from 2021 to 2022.
Key employment changes forecast over the next five years are:
- In the five years from 2017 – 2022 the sector will grow by 20,522 workers.
- To fill new roles and replace people retiring or otherwise leaving the sector, 41,882 new people are needed in Carpentry by 2022.
To maintain current qualification levels, 22,197 additional qualified people are needed in the sector by 2022.
Source: BCITO
