THE RISE OF PRECARIOUS WORK IN THE AUSTRALIAN WORKPLACE By Ged Kearney ACTU President
The use of casual and other types of non-standard or ‘precarious’ work is widespread in Australian workplaces. These types of work arrangements are now almost the norm, with only around 60 per cent of workers in Australia engaged in full or part-time ongoing waged employment. The other 40 per cent of workers are engaged in other types of paid work, including casual and fixed-term employment, independent contracting and labour hire work. Casual employment is the most common type of precarious work in Australia. Around 2.1 million workers (or a quarter of all Australian employees) are now employed on a casual basis. Women are over-represented, accounting for over half of all casual workers . While casual employment was originally intended to be used for short-term and irregular work, many casual workers are now employed on a long-term basis. According to ABS statistics, most casuals have been in their current job for more than a year. Over 15 per cent of casuals (equating to around 300,000) have been in their job for more than 5 years. Australian universities have a casualisation rate that is even higher than the Australian workforce average. There are more than 67,000 casual academic staff teaching at Australian universities. Sixty percent of the academic workforce is now casually employed and it is estimated that as much as 50 per cent of teaching conducted at Australian universities is performed by casual staff. Non-standard work arrangements suit some workers. But many others would prefer better quality, more secure jobs. Studies on the preferences of casual staff at universities has found that most would prefer ongoing employment and are frustrated by the lack of opportunity to gain secure work. ABS data also echoes this sentiment, suggesting that the majority of casuals in the Australian workforce would prefer more secure employment. Moreover, contrary to what some would have us think, there is no evidence
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Connect // Volume 4, no. 1
Semester 1, 2011