Changing job market may be a mixed blessing for workers

A reader in economics at the University of Queensland is worried that some employment trends showing up in the state may not be in the best interests of the workers ? or the bosses.

Associate Professor John Mangan, from the University's Social and Economic Research Centre, is concerned at the implications of the drift towards non-standard work, particularly part-time and casual work.

Dr Mangan has published a workforce and workplace study - Non-standard employment in Queensland: An empirical analysis - which highlights some fundamental shifts in employee/employer relations.

He said there had always been part-time work but it was now increasingly on a casual, irregular basis. This was partly because of changes in the leisure industry and retail sectors which now tended to operate on a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week basis and roster staff accordingly.

While not having to pay wages when things were slack suited businesses, Dr Mangan said this more flexible approach also suited many people who could work the hours they wanted, for example students stacking supermarket shelves at midnight.

However, Dr Mangan expressed concern that the pendulum might have swung too far in one direction and that business was now taking advantage of the burgeoning part-time and casual work market.

"I'd be concerned if there's an element of compulsion creeping in. Flexibility is not necessarily a bad thing and may suit many workers but people should be allowed to make a choice," he said.

Employers who thought they were gaining with part-time and casual labour instead of full-time workers were often not taking account of such intangibles as staff morale, loyalty, job satisfaction and motivation.

"It's also a worry that such staff may have less job security, get little or no training, have no set career path and that health and safety issues may be left up to individuals, many of whom just won't bother," Dr Mangan said.

Another casualty of part-time work was trade union membership. "In Australia only 20 percent of part-time workers and 15 percent of casual workers are currently union members. A lot of these workers don't care about unions and don't see the need for them. They don't see themselves as part of the labour force," he said.

Dr Mangan's research showed the percentage of casual workers in Queensland was well above the national average and that there was a boom in self-employed contractors.

He said 35 per cent of females in the state could be classified as casuals and 19 per cent of males compared with corresponding national figures of 30 per cent and 16 per cent respectively.

Three times as many females as males were in part-time employment although the gap was closing; 43 per cent of females in Queensland were employed on a part-time basis.

"These figures may reflect the industrial and occupational make-up of the Queensland economy but they also signal potential for the development of an entrenched secondary labour market within the state," Dr Mangan said.

He estimated there were around 120,000 self-employed contractors in Queensland who were claiming tax and other advantages over permanent pay-as-you-earn (PAYE) employees.

"The true extent of these benefits needs to be quantified but if they are substantial we may be seeing the emergence of three distinct groups in the Queensland economy," he said.

"The marginalised casual and temporary workers, a shrinking base of permanent employees on PAYE tax regimes and a third group of sub-contractors gaining benefit by virtue of their skill and their ability to shift private costs onto the taxation system."

For further information, contact Dr John Mangan (telephone 3365 6312) or email: j.mangan@mailbox.uq.edu.au