After weeks of devastating flooding, Australia may lack the manpower necessary to rebuild those areas of Queensland and elsewhere severely damaged. Low unemployment combined with drastically low population growth have resulted in a labor market stretched tight even before the recent flooding. An estimated $5 billion will be needed to repair the damage to Brisbane and Queensland's mining areas, and economists have already called on the government to ease restrictions on short-term work visas to meet the demand for workers that will result from the flooding.
See "Floods May Dry Labor Pool", Geoffrey Rogow, The Wall Street Journal, January 17, 2011