There appears to be plenty of work available to people who are in business at the moment, but whether this indicates a shortage of electricians is unclear. There tends to be more work for them where industries of many kinds have a strong presence, such as in Auckland. However, new housing projects in all areas, and government-funded building construction are always a good source of work for construction electrical workers. There have been some changes in the work that electricians do. They now need to know more about programmable controlling ie.
Electricians are now no longer just electricians.
Look at any office and see all the cabling used for the data that is needed - all that is put in by electricians. The tele-data part of their work is just screaming ahead, and they have to pick up the skills to manage that. In the United States, the view is that in the not too distant future, the amount of work available in the tele-data area will just about surpass the amount of work available in traditional areas of electrical installation work.