The survey covered residential workers and non-residential (FIFO) workers and was unambiguously good news for the resources sector, according to QRC CEO Michael Roche.

“What we see from this survey conducted by URS Australia is that the majority of Queensland resource sector workers are happy with their current arrangement to live either in towns with proximity to their work or live further away and commute by car, bus or plane,” he said.

“But the important message from workers is that they want to have the choice and they don’t want that choice taken away from them. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to worker accommodation.

“The concern of the industry is if that choice of accommodation was taken away, the resources sector would lose access to a considerable proportion of its skilled workforce.”

The survey of 1832 workers also showed that 85% of resource industry workers from around Queensland regard their physical and mental health and quality of life as either excellent, very good or good.

The survey questioned both resident (640) and non-resident (1192) workers, including fly in fly out, drive in drive out and bus in bus out workers. It commenced in July 2015, and remained open for six weeks.

The survey found that workers were more committed to sticking with their current accommodation arrangements in 2015 (83%) compared to 2011 (64%).