National statistics recognise unemployment in Australia at a 33 year low, resulting in skills shortages across the industries. The skills shortages in the construction industry are among the highest of the market sectors. This staff shortage makes keeping our valued employees and finding valuable new employees an important issue.

Clients are busy, and they are investing a lot of money into developing assets. It is easy to understand why they want to know that the people constructing their development projects have the knowledge, skills and experience to deliver quality projects successfully.

2007 has been a busy year in the construction industry and for St Hilliers Contracting. We have won, constructed and successfully completed numerous large and demanding projects nationally. Our staff has grown by 21%. We are not stopping here. With a detailed long term strategy in place for sustained growth, we intend to deliver bigger and better projects as the market demands.

We already know from our latest Customer Satisfaction Survey, that clients recognise the St Hilliers people as one of the company‚Äö?Ñ?¥s greatest strengths. They describe them as professional, upfront and direct, quick to respond and enthusiastic, very focused, and very much about getting on with the job.

I am delighted to inform you that our 2007 Employee Satisfaction Survey confirmed our employees believe St Hilliers Contracting provides a positive working environment with high standards of morale and teamwork. Our employees say we are a dynamic company with a future they want to be part of.

The survey highlighted how motivated our employees are to progress in their careers and how much they appreciate the challenging work they get to do and the job satisfaction that results from doing it well.We thank our clients for providing the challenging projects that motivate our staff to do well and contribute to their job satisfaction.

We will continue to listen to our clients and employees to ensure we maintain our track record that is made possible by the knowledge, skill, dedication and commitment of the St Hilliers people.

Marc Longo
Managing Director, St Hilliers Contracting