Hydraulic and civil engineers are popular people right now with all the work that needs to happen after the floods, but it could mean council projects take longer until workers free up.
The high demand is also increasing labour costs, so some councils out-bidding each other and thereby paying more to have work done quickly.
That means some councils will miss out, a problem being felt across Queensland and in parts of northern NSW after recent floods.
Deputy mayor Jon Raven said this could mean that projects take longer than usual and cost more due to the higher labour costs associated with the demand for workers.
“I don’t know if it’s a shortage, it’s just that engineers are really expensive at the moment because everybody is doing bridge and road flood assessments,” he said.
Logan City Council has a team of in-house engineers, but like all councils, external help from engineering firms is needed to build and maintain the city.
It becomes harder to source outside help when all councils are vying for engineers during flood recovery efforts, coupled with the need for ongoing general maintenance.
“That’s one of those things that impacts rate payers the other way in that we have to use engineers less, which means that projects take longer, or we have to pay more to get the engineers who do great work, and that impacts the bottom line,” he said.
One contributing influence is a skilled migrant shortage caused by the borders being shut for so long.
“It’s really about not getting enough skilled migrants in the country to meet the need,” he said.
Cr Raven said it will mainly affect the bigger infrastructure projects rather than smaller jobs and those for the upkeep of critical services. For instance, he said council has an alliance with other water providers around the state, which permits the sharing of water engineers between council areas.
“Councils are pretty creative about it – for water we’ve got an alliance where we can share water engineers with the other water providers, so we have access to a whole heap,” he said.
