It is curious that, according to a new survey, one of the biggest impediments to the growth of Canberra's small-to-medium business sector is a lack of skilled labour.
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This is, after all, a city state with more universities per head than any other jurisdiction, a plethora of private and public schools and a host of institutions offering trade and life skills courses by the bushel.
Almost equally concerning is the finding, by the Deloitte Private SME survey, that more than half the respondents cited employment red tape and rising operating costs as significant speed bumps on the road to economic growth.
Given it is almost universally acknowledged that Canberra must grow its private enterprise sector if it is to strengthen its economy and underwrite the cost of future infrastructure enhancements, these results should come as a wake-up call to the ACT government.
While costs are not something over which it can exercise direct control, unnecessary layers of bureaucracy and the need for targeted vocational education do fall within its bailiwick.
Deloitte's findings are reinforced by recent comments by a Canberra builder on the impact a lack of skilled tradies is having on residential construction.
He told Fairfax that because the Sydney and Melbourne building markets were booming again after the slowdown of a few years ago that had skilled labourers swarm to Canberra, the traffic was now very much the other way.
Bricklayers, for example, are in very short supply and training organisations have reportedly initiated short courses to help address the need.
In the meantime builders and their customers are having to learn to live with a 40 per cent escalation in bricklaying costs, up from $1 a brick in January to about $1.40 a brick today.
Carpenters, joiners, plasterers and other trades, many which take much longer to train than a brickie, are just as hard to find.
The news is not all bad, however, with the results of the latest survey reporting a more optimistic outlook among small business operators than was the case a year ago.
Canberra Business Chamber chief executive Robyn Hendry, a long-standing advocate for a healthy and prosperous private sector to reduce the city's dependence on public sector employment and spending, has welcomed the upsurge in confidence.
She is correct in stating it should not breed an air of complacency about the future.
"We need to use this time of good industry and business confidence to build resilience in our economy and to do that we have to diversify and get ready to be able to handle the future," Ms Hendry said.
The prescription is quite simple; the challenge is to motivate government and private sector operators to follow this excellent advice.
A failure to do so will leave the ACT at undue risk from future economic downturns, the accession of small-government politicians and the unintended consequences of fiscal reforms as yet unborn.
