Australia’s productivity growth is at its lowest level in 60 years. Despite decades of dialogue around reform and investment, we continue to fall behind our global competitors.
Productivity is one of the most powerful levers we have to improve living standards and control inflation.
Yet, growth has stagnated at just 0.5 per cent over the past year.
SEE MORE: Tradie Tough Tests
To simply match the already modest gains of the last decade, we’d need to quadruple that rate to around 2 per cent annually by 2030.
This downward trajectory is eroding our economic prosperity, placing pressure on national infrastructure programs, and weakening real wages and living standards.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
Productivity isn’t a mystery.
It’s a policy choice. And right now, some of our choices are holding us back. Among them, fragmented occupational licensing schemes and a patchwork of standards that add cost and complexity without clear benefit.
As Australia’s national authority on welding, Weld Australia recently made a submission to the Productivity Commission’s National Competition Policy Review.
In it, we highlighted two key opportunities that could drive real, lasting productivity gains across construction, fabrication, manufacturing, and engineering: a unified national licensing framework for tradespeople, and greater clarity and consistency in the application of Australian and international standards.
The licensing paradox
Across the trades, Australia’s licensing arrangements are inefficient at best and dysfunctional at worst.
For example, bricklayers must be licensed.
Electricians can become licensed straight out of TAFE.
Yet every state and territory applies different rules, overseen by different bodies, often with inconsistent competency benchmarks.
The Productivity Commission has rightly identified occupational licensing as an area ripe for reform. In theory, licensing protects safety and quality.
In practice, it’s a broken system that delivers neither. There is little assurance that licensed individuals meet real-world competency expectations, and virtually no national consistency.
In welding, we’ve taken a different path: an industry-led approach to certification.
For decades, Weld Australia has overseen certification of welders to recognised Australian and international standards, ensuring they are competent to carry out high-risk, high-consequence work.
This process is robust, auditable, and backed by accreditation bodies like JAS-ANZ and the International Institute of Welding (IIW).
It works — and more importantly, it works across borders.
Certification to ISO 9606 or AS/NZS ISO 1554 ensures a welder is job-ready anywhere in the country.
A national licensing scheme should adopt this same philosophy: assess competency, not just coursework; enable mobility, not bureaucracy; and demand rigour, not red tape.
The current system enables a person fresh from TAFE to undertake complex electrical work, while simultaneously requiring licensed trades in areas where competency has not been adequately tested.
This lack of consistency not only compromises safety and quality but stifles productivity.
Employers must navigate a maze of licensing bodies, pay duplicate fees, and absorb unnecessary delays in project delivery.
We support a national licensing scheme, but only if it puts competency first.
It must be tied to practical, standardised assessments that are recognised across jurisdictions. Otherwise, we’re simply reshuffling the deck chairs on a ship that’s already listing.
Weld Australia recommends the following:
- State based licensing should be replaced by a national licensing system run by the appropriate trade body.
- Qualification and certification must be mandatory for all trades.
- Trade training must include a test to standard.
- Uncertified tradespeople must not work unsupervised.
The role of standards
The Productivity Commission also asked whether Australia should abandon national standards in favour of international alternatives.
Our view is clear: the idea is not only impractical, but deeply misguided.
There’s no doubt that harmonising certain standards can support trade, particularly in regulated product markets.
But to suggest we abandon Australian Standards altogether is to misunderstand their value.
Our standards are designed for Australian conditions, be they environmental, industrial, or economic.
They reflect decades of experience in construction, engineering, and manufacturing under our unique regulatory and climate settings.
Weld Australia collaborates closely with Standards Australia and international bodies like ISO.
In fact, many of our national welding standards are already aligned with ISO equivalents where appropriate.
But adopting international standards wholesale would introduce unnecessary complexity, especially when those standards are bureaucratic, inconsistent, or irrelevant to Australian industry practice.
What’s more, the real issue isn’t which standards we use — it’s whether they’re being complied with.
Right now, many imported fabricated steel components enter the Australian market without meeting any recognised standard, Australian or international. This not only creates a safety risk but undermines compliant Australian businesses that are doing the right thing.
The priority for reform should not be a switch to ISO for the sake of appearances. Instead, we need to strengthen compliance mechanisms, invest in quality assurance, and ensure fair competition by holding all market participants to the same bar, regardless of origin.
Fixing fragmentation, fostering competency
The overarching problem in both licensing and standards is fragmentation.
Every state and territory runs its own licensing agenda.
Every procurement agency seems to interpret compliance differently.
The result? Costly inefficiencies, lost productivity, and a national workforce that struggles to move where it’s needed most.
Consider this: in the construction industry, while the number of workers has increased in the past decade, output per worker has reduced.
On average, people are working two hours less per year with 25.4 per cent lower output—calculated as construction work completed divided by the number of workers.
For example, worker output in 2023 was $180,100, compared with $196,800 in 2018. With demand for skilled workers continuing to outpace the available supply, greater productivity is key to raising worker output.
Skilled labour shortages persist, yet our systems prevent qualified people from moving between jurisdictions or gaining recognition for their skills.
The solution isn’t another layer of policy.
It’s simplification.
A national licensing system, based on real competency.
A clear framework for standard adoption, focused on outcomes, not politics.
Stronger enforcement of quality expectations, not weaker ones. And training systems that prepare workers for real jobs, not just hand out certifications on paper.
A better way forward
Weld Australia is leading by example.
We’ve proposed a new productivity-based training scheme that gives fabrication businesses the resources to train staff internally, supported by our advanced learning modules and instructor accreditation.
We are also fast-tracking certification for production welders so businesses can access qualified workers in weeks, not years.
At the same time, we’re conducting research into welder productivity across jurisdictions.
Our findings suggest that Australian welders average just two hours of arc-on-time per day, compared to five hours in Germany or the US.
We’re investigating how technology, such as collaborative robots (cobots) and Trades Assistants, can help overcome bottlenecks in materials handling and prep work, freeing qualified welders to focus on high-value tasks.
These are tangible, grassroots solutions, designed by industry, for industry. If we truly want to lift Australia’s productivity, we need to move beyond theoretical policy debates and start acting on what works.
More than just another report
The Productivity Commission’s review is an important opportunity.
But it must be more than just another report. If we are serious about revitalising productivity, we need bold action.
That means unifying trade licensing around demonstrated competency.
It means safeguarding Australian standards where they serve us best.
And it means enforcing compliance to protect local jobs and communities.
The reforms we need aren’t radical — they’re rational.
But they require leadership, collaboration, and a willingness to put practical outcomes ahead of politics. The future of Australian industry depends on it.