Rebuilding Australia with confidence

It’s been a tough 18 months for many, with COVID-19 impacting our ability to spend time with family and friends, to travel, to play sport and to confidently power ahead with our home renovations – I’m ever so slightly invested in this last point!

But we’re turning a corner, with vaccinations expected to hit the magic 70% next month and life expected to start returning to normal, albeit a new COVID-normal.

At hipages, we’ve been doing our part too, with our team offered additional paid leave days to go and get their jabs. And today, I’m incredibly proud to share that we’ve introduced Australia’s first COVID-19 vaccination badge for tradies, so homeowners can book their job with confidence, knowing COVID-safety is taken care of.

In the 12 months to June 2021, we had more than 1.5m jobs posted on our platform, an increase of 12% across the year. This was driven by an accelerated adoption of digital tools during the pandemic, and by homeowners turning their attention to their homes as they spent more time than ever before in their four walls, living, working, exercising and homeschooling.

As we start to ease out of restrictions, we’re anticipating a mini-boom in renovations, with tradie demand likely to soar. We saw a similar trend during lockdowns in Victoria throughout 2020, and this will be coupled with the usual seasonal uptick in demand for tradies that we see at this time of year, as homeowners emerge from winter hibernation and get their homes and gardens ready for summer.

We developed the COVID-19 vaccination badge to make it more transparent, efficient and seamless for everyone – homeowners can have peace of mind that their tradie is protected, and tradies can clearly demonstrate that they are okay to work, boosting consumer confidence.

We’re all living and working with restrictions designed to keep everyone safe, and that can mean that some processes are more challenging. But it’s something that we all need to embrace to ensure the safety of our communities and to support Australia opening up, schools returning, businesses operating and families coming together.

The COVID-19 vaccination badge for tradies is our way of using our expertise in technology to support tradies to grow and thrive.

As reported by Adella Beaini from News Corp Australia, hipages’ COVID-19 vaccination badge launched today in New South Wales and will be rolling out to tradies across other States in the coming weeks. The badge will be visible on a tradie’s hipages profile once they’ve provided their vaccination certificate and they have been marked as satisfactory by the hipages team.

Find out more about hipages COVID-19 vaccination badge here.