Sydney construction firms could be forced out of business if the citywide industry shutdown continues past July 30, business owners say, as rising COVID-19 case numbers challenge Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s assertion that workers will soon be permitted back on site.
Work ground to a halt on Monday after Berejiklian announced a two-week construction industry shutdown for Greater Sydney, designed to slow the coronavirus Delta variant from tearing through across the city.
Despite state and federal government support packages designed to compensate impacted businesses and workers through industry shutdowns, the decision had an immediate impact on small firms with slim margins.
Fronting the media on Tuesday, Berejiklian insisted that construction work will resume on July 31, when the city’s general lockdown restrictions are slated to end.
“There will definitely be construction activity on 31 July, I can give you that assurance,” she told reporters.
But local case numbers climbed by 124 on Thursday, bringing the outbreak to 1,648 individual cases, and prompting health experts to suggest the lockdown could become “permanent” until a significant portion of the population is fully vaccinated.
Keeping construction workers off the tools for more than two weeks could have a dire impact for home builders like ATN Constructions, said director Thomas Nuzzo.
“I really hope that it doesn’t prolong more than two weeks,” Nuzzo told Business Insider Australia. “But if it does, I’d have to start looking at whether or not I can retain my staff.”
Nuzzo said the shutout has impacted not just his firm, which hires six full-time employees, but the contractors slated to work on its construction projects.
“We have all our trade scheduled, locked in and ready to move to try and meet these tight schedules. And things like this, just blow that out the window. You basically have to start again. And hopefully, you can get these people back.”
Clients have also been impacted, compounding stress in the sector. One family booked rental accommodation for eight weeks to cover the duration of construction works, Nuzzo said, but the lockdown has already added two weeks onto that schedule.
“They’re out of home, the longer they’re out of home, the more it costs them,” Nuzzo said. “Then they’re not going to be able to pay us. We’re not performing any work, we’ve got overheads.”
The state government has issued assurances that financial support measures will be rendered “fit for purpose”, according to the Property Council of Australia.
ATN Construction is currently in the process of assessing its eligibility for those payments.
But Nuzzo “can’t see how we can survive” if construction closures carry on.
The construction shutdown is estimated to cost NSW some $1.4 billion in lost economic activity — but it is not the only jurisdiction to enforce strict shutdowns in response to new threats of COVID-19.
South Australia launched its own hardline seven-day home building and renovation shutdown on Tuesday, which Housing Industry Association SA director Steven Knight described as “extremely disappointing”.
Those restrictions were partially wound back to allow workers to make temporarily abandoned worksites safe and secure.
Victoria, slogging through its fifth lockdown since the start of the pandemic, is allowing workers to attend unoccupied and outdoor construction sites under limited circumstances.
Despite her assurance construction will return on July 31, Berejiklian has previously signaled a reluctance to institute construction site occupancy caps, saying they can “cause confusion”.
Nearly one in ten COVID-19 cases detected in the community have resulted from workplace transmissions, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
State government figures have stated extra measures, like the decision to lock down non-emergency workers in the Fairfield, Liverpool, and Canterbury-Bankstown regions, were designed to further limit movement across the city.
Nuzzo, who said his team wore facemasks on-site well before the latest lockdown, hoped for a quick resolution to the “difficult situation”.
“All I can say is if construction stops, the country’s going to stop,” he said.
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