Started Visa process in 2009, Visa Agents were always reassuring us Building trade was a sure thing... wages were great in Brisbane, loads of jobs.. you could just about walk onto a building site and get work!! ..... we went over for a recci mid 2009, bit shocked to find work was scarce!, mainly due to reccession.... at the time we thought understandable...As we have already invested a few thousand pounds with Visa process we thought we should see it all through, hoping things would pick up.... meanwhile waited to get Visa through, which was granted April this year.... Have started looking at house prices , wages etc... Now wondering what the situation is workwise around Brisbane?..... Anyone out there can give me a REALISTIC idea what I could expect to earn per week TAKE HOME PAY???... IF the pay is as low as $27/$28 per hour as well as the dreaded exchange rate pound > dollar etc, wondering if the big move would be a huge mistake.
Much appreciated....

 

hey bungee, im also a bricklayer applied dec08 ,,we got our visa in june but i`ve been lloking for years literally at houses and stuff,,we really dont know what to do now i rang a few guys in bris and they said the most you can get is 28-32 dollars an hour the trouble is its gonna take 6000 pounds sterling to validate ,did you say you did a recci berore you got you visa,also there is so much talk anout all types of employment but ours ,, are you working at the minute were you live,,

 

We moved to North Lakes (north brissy) about 1 month ago, my hubby is a builder, he was a very successful builder in the UK for 20yrs. There is work here, they are building entire towns, but the salary is abissmal, $28ph, no holiday/sick pay, no pay if its rained off or if the materials dont arrive etc, he is ready to jack the job in already. He was working in the next town, but the crew get work all over the place, he now has to travel over 1.5hrs to get to work, and they work him to the bone. He said 'this is NOT what I came to Australia for'. You can only take on contracts if you have a builders licence, which is pretty had to get and has to be studied for. There are no builders merchants round here either so everything is done via large corporations, and usually the large corporations take on builders and their crews. It works very differently here. We are trying to find a way of making money, but we cant see light at the end of the tunnel yet.
We are going to look into renovation work in the 'older' towns to see if this brings in a proper salary.
Hope this helps, only being honest