Job insecurity ‘accelerating at record rate’

Casual jobs slumped by 20 per cent in the first three months of the coronavirus pandemic before surging by 400,000 positions over the next six months.

Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter. Picture: Gary Ramage

Casual jobs slumped by 20 per cent in the first three months of the coronavirus pandemic before surging by 400,000 positions over the next six months, the biggest expansion of casual employment in Australia’s history.

New analysis by the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work shows after casual workers lost employment eight times faster than those in permanent jobs at the start of the pandemic, a subsequent surge saw casual jobs account for 60 per cent of all jobs created since May.

Centre director Jim Stanford said Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter recently said “employers are delaying making hiring decisions because of ongoing confusion about the legal status of casual employment”.

“In fact, the 400,000 new casual positions created between May and November represent the biggest and fastest expansion in casual employment in Australia’s history,” Dr Stanford said.

“It is not credible to argue that the existing legal framework, which already provides extremely broad scope for employers to use casual employment contracts, is somehow preventing new hiring after the pandemic.”

He said the government’s proposed industrial relations changes would liberalise casual work and allow permanent part-time workers to be treated like casual workers. “These measures will accelerate the surge of insecure work — and ensure that the next economic shock will have even more unequal effects than this one did,” he said.

Mr Porter said it should hardly seem surprising there had been a bounce-back in casual employment as businesses recovered from the effects of COVID-19 restrictions and rehired staff. “Many of the hardest-hit industries, such as hospitality, have always had a large casual and part-time work force and, as we saw at the start of the pandemic and through the extended lockdown in Victoria, many of these businesses were only able to operate in a very limited capacity, if at all,” he said.

“That many of those workers are now being re-employed is good news for them and a sign the businesses they work for are ­recovering.”

He said any suggestion of wider implications from the impact of COVID on long-term employment trends was “ridicu­lous­ly premature … the level of casual work has not changed in Australia in the last 25 years.

“To suggest our IR reforms would increase the use of casual work is nonsense and reflects the partisan nature of these comments. The bill gives far greater rights to convert from casual to permanent employment than Labor’s Fair Work Act ever did and enhances the existing award conversion opportunities determined by the Fair Work Commission as recently as 2018.”

Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said the reason so many casuals had been engaged over the past few months was because so many had been laid off at the start of the pandemic, particularly in the retail and hospitality sectors that employ a large number of casuals.

“Some, but by no means all, of these casuals have been re-­engaged,” he said. “The current uncertainty around casual employment needs to be removed to encourage employers to employ the very large number of casuals who have not yet found a job.”

ACTU assistant secretary Scott Connolly said COVID-19 “exposed the dangers of casual work throughout the pandemic”.

“With no sick leave to rely upon, workers were compromised and forced to work sick, increasing the rate of inflection and requiring further harsh lockdowns which hurt the economy and cost jobs,” he said.

“Instead of resolving these ­issues, the federal government’s proposed industrial relations reforms will only seek to entrench and expand insecure work for millions of vulnerable workers and their families.”

Dr Stanford said almost 13 per cent of part-time workers lost their jobs in the first three months of the pandemic, compared to 4 per cent of full-time workers.

Part-time employment increased by almost 550,000 positions between May and Nov­ember, however.

“At almost one worker in three, Australia has the third-highest reliance on part-time work of any industrial country behind only The Netherlands and Switzerland,” he said.

Self-employment increased by close to 75,000 positions between May and November, offsetting a 70 per cent decline at the start of the pandemic.

“Since the economic recovery began in May, the vast majority of new work has been concentrated in casual jobs, part-time positions, and highly insecure forms of self-employment. Those trends seem likely to continue into 2021, accelerated by policy changes which will facilitate greater use of insecure hiring practices.”