Tradies bringing home the bacon for Australia

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has released data showing that tradies are bringing home the bacon for the country's economy.

During the 2011-12 period, the construction industry generated $305 billion of total income, contributing almost a third of that ($99 billion) to the Australian economy.

"Two-thirds of the jobs in the industry were in construction services -  that's the carpenters, bricklayers,electricians, plumbers, and other tradespeople," said William Milne, director of Integrated Collections at the ABS in a June 27 statement.

Construction workers racked up a hefty bill though, with total expenses of $275 billion, of which $82 billion was spent on purchases, $77 billion was spent on payments to other businesses and trade services, and $60 billion was spent on labour costs.

"The construction industry reported an operating profit before tax of $30 billion, which works out as a
profit margin of ten per cent," said Mr Milne

Tradies are a huge part of the Australian economy, and the 950,000 employees in the industry represent almost five per cent of the total population of the country, which is currently sitting at around 24 million.