The Survey
In July 2025, MATES in Construction surveyed more than 3,300 workers across the construction, manufacturing, and infrastructure sectors, with support from ASB. The survey is New Zealand’s most comprehensive look at wellbeing in the industry — not just mental health symptoms, but the factors that sustain workers and those that put them at risk.
The findings are both encouraging and sobering. Workers demonstrate strong job satisfaction and a meaningful connection to the purpose of what they build. But they also carry significant loads: exhaustion, financial stress, and physical health challenges that the industry, as a whole, has been slow to address at a systemic level.
What Protects Workers
The survey identifies four factors that function as protective buffers against poor mental health outcomes:
- Mateship: strong peer relationships on site — the capacity to check in on a workmate and know someone will check in on you
- Meaningful work: a sense that what you are building matters and that your contribution is recognised
- Respect: being treated as a competent professional by employers, supervisors, and clients
- Connection: access to supportive team environments and, where needed, mental health resources that are genuinely accessible rather than theoretically available
Workers also identified specific off-site factors as important — family time, spiritual practices, and financial stability. The wellbeing picture is not confined to what happens on site; it extends into the whole of a worker’s life, and the conditions of work affect the whole of that life.
What Undermines Wellbeing
Exhaustion from heavy and extended workloads, financial stress, and physical health problems are the three most commonly reported challenges. These are not individual failings — they are systemic conditions created by how the industry structures work and compensates workers. Workload management, fair pay, and genuine access to leave are structural requirements for workforce wellbeing, not optional additions to a wellbeing programme.
What Employers Can Do
MATES’ findings point to actions at two levels. Individual acts — a smile, a direct question, a word of encouragement — can spark meaningful connection in a culture where men in particular are socialised to downplay struggle. These acts have real value. But the survey is equally clear that individual acts cannot substitute for systemic change. Workplaces that consistently produce exhausted, financially stressed, isolated workers will not be fixed by wellbeing programmes alone. Structural conditions — reasonable workloads, fair pay, genuine leave, accessible support — are the foundation.
Employers who want to do better can start with the detailed findings at mates.net.nz/research. The survey provides enough specificity to inform meaningful action rather than generic wellbeing gestures.
