There are fears Kiwi construction workers will eye up Australia for work as jobs are cut and work diminishes in New Zealand.
There's been a lot of talk and pressure for the Government to put a trans-Tasman travel bubble in place to help the struggling tourism sector.
However, there's some worry that opening up a bubble could lead to a mass exodus to Australia, especially for people working in the construction industry.
Newsroom reporter Dileepa Fonseka shone a light on such concerns after speaking to leaders in the construction industry who say that with construction work being rescinded, delayed and deferred, many of them will look to Australia unless more is done to keep them here.
Fonseka told TVNZ 1's Breakfast this morning over the next few weeks it's expected more construction firms will make decisions on laying workers off and considering whether or not they'll take on the same amount of jobs as previously planned.
"You'll see a lot of firms pairing back that work and so that's going to mean more unemployment in the sector, so the thing is, are those people still going to be unemployed when the border reopens? And if that's that case, there's going to be every incentive for them to go across the Tasman - is the fear.
"You need to have some certainty around the level of work because if firms are making decisions they need to know that this project is coming up at this time and is going out to market at this point - that's the way that they're going to make decisions around employment and that sort of thing."
Already though, Fonseka said architecture firms were noticing drops in their books, which is the first signal that further down the line there will be less construction sector work.
As well, workers on a building site in Australia can earn on average of 25 per cent more than in New Zealand.
Fonseka said that salary difference had always existed, but over the next year some workers will be considering whether to move to Australia for work.
"Those future prospects are probably something we have to think about in this sector," Fonseka said.
"You had in Australia, there was a real effort from the federal government to keep the construction sites open during their whole lockdown in order to keep the sector running, I guess, and over here we had that period where a lot of construction workers were locked out of the site, so that's had an impact."
In Australia, the mining sector continues to lure tradespeople across to take up work, he said.
Later on Breakfast, National MP Paula Bennett said it was important to acknowledge that "it is business that needs support right now and not just through the wage subsidy, but actually helping them get back on their feet".
"I'm sure there are some that might choose that lifestyle, they have in all the decades that I've been around, but we can't close the borders so that people don't leave. We're not one of those countries."
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