ABSTRACTThis paper analyses the wage ‘roll out’ effect of a period of rapid resource based development in the Latrobe Valley region in Australia. Wage level adjustments are seen to correlate closely to categories of skilled labour shortage on major construction sites. More significantly, these wage adjustments are seen to spill over into all blue collar occupational categories in the region, including industries off the construction sites. The wage ‘roll out’ effect is related to the structure of the regional economy through the application of a survey‐based input‐output table and through the analysis of labour market recruitment and migrati