Chinese building companies are in the spotlight after a sting operation revealed a number of non-compliant building sites.

Officials carried out inspections on 152 sites in late 2016.

80 per cent of sites lacked licensed building practitioners or consented building plans.

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Under Operation Landing, building sites were broken down by "major ethnicities of the workforce".

Nearly two-thirds of the sites were listed as Asian or Chinese (64.7 per cent). The next most prevalent ethnicity was European or Kiwi (16.7 per cent).

As a result, five people were deported – four Chinese and one Malaysian.

Massey University sociology professor, Paul Spoonley, says there needs to be stricter oversight of the industry and that more effort is needed to crack down on non-compliant building companies.

"Making sure that immigrants, and particularly immigrant employers, understand their obligations; so there's an educational dimension to this.

"Certainly I suspect that some immigrant employers are very well aware of the inadequacies of our systems."