Yahoo Finance Billionaire blasts ‘lazy tradies’ and calls for 275k Aussies to lose jobs
The property mogul once famously said young people were choosing $19 smashed avo and $4 coffees over buying a home.
A billionaire property mogul has welcomed “pain” for Australian employees if it will remind them they are lucky to be in a job.
Gurner Group chief executive Tim Gurner took aim at “unproductive tradies” for being “paid a lot to do not too much” and younger workers embracing more work-life balance.
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“We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around,” Gurner told the Australian Financial Review Property Summit in Sydney yesterday.
“We need to see unemployment rise, unemployment has to jump 40-50 per cent. In my view, we need to see pain in the economy. There’s been a systematic change where employees feel the employer is extremely lucky to have them as opposed to the other way around.”
Gurner Group founder Tim Gurner tells the Financial Review Property Summit workers have become "arrogant" since COVID and "We've got to kill that attitude." https://t.co/lcX3CCxGuj pic.twitter.com/f9HK2YZRRE
— Financial Review (@FinancialReview) September 12, 2023
How many Aussie workers does Gurner want sacrificed?
A 50 per cent increase in the current 3.7 per cent unemployment rate would put another 275,000 Australians out of work.
The unemployment rate is a key component in bringing Australia's rising inflation back to a more manageable level.
The Reserve Bank of Australia has pushed interest rates up in a bid to control ballooning inflation, but projected a jobless rate of 4.4 per cent by late 2024 would suffice. That’s a considerably lower figure than Gurner’s 5.6 per cent.
Young people’s frivolous spending blasted
It’s not the first time the 40-year-old Millennial has taken aim at younger people.
In 2017, the Rich Lister claimed the demographic prioritised buying “smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each” over saving to invest in property as he had.
“I spent every night on my hands and knees sanding back the floors, painting, renovating and working on the house,” he told 60 Minutes.
“When we sold it, I used the small profits of $12,000 to purchase my next property and it all grew from there.”
Gurner acknowledged the pandemic had a lot to do with a change in the work-life dynamic and said an attitude shift in how staff are treated would help bring employees back into line.
“We’ve got to kill that attitude and that has to come through hurting the economy which is what the whole global world is trying to do.
“The governments around the world are trying to increase unemployment, to get that to some sort of normality, and we’re seeing it. I think every employer now is seeing it.”
He said mass layoffs led to “less arrogance in the employment market”, particularly taking aim at tradies.
"People decided they didn't really want to work so much through Covid and that has had a massive issue on productivity," he said.
"Tradies have definitely pulled back on productivity. They have been paid a lot to do not too much in the last few years, and we need to see that change."
President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) told Yahoo Finance that bosses like Gurner are "the perfect example of why we need unions", labelling his comments as "obscene and offensive to workers to carried us through the pandemic".
Tradespeople were considered essential workers in the pandemic and were able to keep billing hours as many other Australians were forced to stay at home during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Since then the industry has been impacted heavily by supply-chain shortages and the collapse of businesses in the construction industry.
"A successful economy is one where workers’ wages are growing, unemployment is low, and workers are secure in their jobs," ACTU president Michele O'Neil said.
"Productivity in Australia has grown much quicker than real wages. Corporate profits have grown much quicker than the wages of workers. Business investment is near record lows.
"Whilst out of touch millionaires hoard their riches, workers have never been so productive and yet receive so little of the wealth they create.”
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