Whoever thinks tradies are over paid is a farkk stick.
Im an electrican and work in commercial constuction. Most work is goverment funded such as schools, fire stations, police stations, department of human services housing commision developments ect. The company I work for is a small company with 2 directors, myself and 1 apprentice. So overhead expenses are very kept to a minimum.
Go back 10 years ago when mining was booming in Australia and there was alot more money to be made in the industry than now. Since the mining boom has dropped off, all the trades and services that were needed over there have came back to the east coast looking for work. This has resulted in undercutting, and now you got people willing to do the work for nothing just so they can keep their company rolling on, and alot of them go broke.
Even 6 years ago my boss use to put 20% on top of materials when tendering for a job, and just to give you an idea on what materials are worth, a job we are in the process of tendering at the moment we just recieved a quote from our suppliers for the cost of materials. The quote was 416k. This is for a school and there is probably about 6 months work in it for us. Long gone are the days where you can put anything ontop of the materials you are suppling if you actually want to win a tender.
Its very tight at the moment. Companies are willing to do the work for pretty much nothing, which then goes on to effect the quality of work. Trying to save money on the right materials and time just to try and make a buck. So many contractors are going bankrupt these days.
Its getting harder and harder to make a good buck in the constuction industry as a quality contractor i could go on about it for ages but cant be bothered.
If you dont have a clue what you talking about then dont try and act like you do
