An unprecedented growth in new apprenticeships is still leaving the construction industry woefully short of skilled trades workers.
Building and Construction Industry Training Organisation chief executive Ruma Karaitiana said 9000 apprentices were in training, with the organisation signing, on average, 106 new apprentices a week in 2014.
''All the construction trades across the board, from carpentry to painting and brick and block laying, are under huge amounts of pressure and all the data says this pressure will continue into the 2020s.''
The industry had come out of a period where, because of the recession, not enough houses were being built to maintain normal demand, particularly in Auckland.
The Christchurch earthquakes led to large rebuild projects, which only compounded the pressure, he said.
''The result is an extremely high-demand environment and we simply don't have the number of skilled tradespeople to meet that demand.''
The industry needed to spend more time and resources planning for its future skills and labour needs and individual businesses needed to stay in tune with the rest of the country, Mr Karaitiana said.
National and Labour are both promising to build large numbers of houses to help first-home buyers into their own home.
Labour is promising 100,000 houses over 10 years and National is promising 90,000.
Labour housing spokesman Phil Twyford admitted finding enough skilled trades workers to meet Labour's target would be difficult.
The shortage ranged across all parts of the building industry, from plumbers and electricians through to quantity surveyors.
Labour would invest heavily in training through its policy of no-one under 20 being on the dole. Training would start at school.
Employers would receive a subsidy, tied to the level of the unemployment benefit, to take on staff for training.
''KiwiBuild is creating a career for people in all forms of trades.''
Mr Twyford admitted getting enough people to start building 10,000 houses a year immediately would be hard and he expected 3000 houses a year for the few few years while people were trained.
Labour was prepared to bring in skilled workers from overseas until New Zealand built up its own skilled workforce.
