AUT: (fwd) Casual jobs the new way (in Australia)

[pmargin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Steve Wright)]

from www.theage.com.au/daily/990726/news/news3.html

Melbourne Age
Monday 26 July 1999
Casual jobs the new way
 By TIM COLEBATCH
 ECONOMICS EDITOR
              CANBERRA

             Casual employment is taking over the
  workforce. The Productivity Commission has
      reported that virtually the entire job
      growth for male employees in Australia in
  the past decade or so has been in jobs that
     confer no right to holidays or sick leave.

   In an astonishing finding, a new research
   paper by the commission today reveals that
              in the 12 years from 1985 to 1997,
     Australia experienced a net growth of just
  36,500 permanent jobs for male employees,
         but 502,400 casual jobs.

       It was a very different story for women,
       who accounted for 920,200 of the 1,459,100
        growth in jobs over that period, including
          514,400 new permanent jobs, according to
        unpublished Bureau of Statistics data
  quoted by the study.

  Yet even so, the research paper reports,
     908,200 or 62per cent of all jobs created
  in Australia from 1985 to 1997 were in
              casual employment, defined as jobs
 conveying no entitlement to annual leave or
             sick leave.

      The figures show that employers, in effect,
         have cut labor costs by using casual
       employment to strip back the gains by
       workers over past decades. From 16per cent
       of employees in 1985, those without leave
     rights grew to 26per cent in 1997,
 including 32per cent of women and 21per
              cent of men.

        The figures are spelt out in a commission
      research paper, Productivity and the
              Structure of Employment, by Paula Barnes,
       Rick Johnson, Anthony Kulys and Scott Hook.
              The paper's main thrust was to explore the
          relationship between productivity and
        employment changes in different industries.

 It shows that workers with no entitlement
             to leave make up 58per cent of all
   employees in hotels and restaurants, 50per
     cent of farm employees, 47per cent of
   employees in retailing, 38per cent of
       entertainment industry workers, and 30per
      cent of construction employees.

   But they make up just 15per cent of the
    manufacturing workforce, 15per cent of
              public sector jobs, 17per cent of employee
 jobs in transport and communications, and
             fewer than 10per cent of employees in
     mining, electricity, gas and water. The
    paper points out that apart from the public
        sector, these are the industries with the
  highest productivity growth in the past 20
   years.

              But even in those sectors, it points out,
        casual jobs were growing while permanent
    jobs were shrinking. ``Electricity, gas and
              water and manufacturing have displayed a
              significant degree of downsizing over the
              period 1985 to 1997,'' the study reports.
              ``The downsizing was therefore concentrated
              on permanent rather than casual
              employment.''

              Similarly, the study found 51per cent of
              all jobs created in Australia between 1978
              and 1997 were in part-time work. In
              retailing, for example, the number of
              full-time jobs grew by just 100 in almost
              two decades, whereas part-time jobs
              increased by 312,400. In the market sector
              (in effect, the private sector), three in
              every four jobs created since 1978 has been
              part-time.

              Work for the dole was a fact of life, the
              Federal Opposition said yesterday, with
              only the emphasis on training now in
              dispute between the main political parties.

              The Opposition employment spokesman, Mr
              Martin Ferguson, said Labor's Working
              Nation plan, scrapped by the coalition, was
              also a work for the dole plan, and the
              concept was now here to stay.

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