New research, released for International Women’s Day (8 March 2021), shows Australia’s recovery from the pandemic recession has widened the gender pay gap, as women’s jobs returned on a more part-time and casualised basis than for men.

The report, by the Centre for Future Work, warns that Australia’s gender pay gap could deteriorate even further in the wake of policies proposed by the Government for 2021: including the further expansion of casual work and reduced pay for part-time workers, tabled in the omnibus industrial relations bill; public sector pay caps for both federal and state employees; and a high-cost, inaccessible childcare system.

Key findings:

• Women suffered disproportionate job losses when the COVID pandemic hit, and as the economy recovers are returning to jobs that are relatively more insecure.
  • Employment for women declined almost 8% between February and May 2020—over 2 percentage points worse than for men.
  • Women’s employment is still 0.9% lower than in January last year (around 53,000 less jobs), while male employment went up over that same period (by an additional 7,000 jobs).
  • Job-creation since May (the worst month of the COVID recession) has been heavily concentrated in casual and part-time jobs. From May through November, casual jobs made up over 60% of new jobs –and women filled 62% of those casual roles.
  • The disproportionate concentration of women in newly-created casual and part-time jobs is largely responsible for a significant widening of the gender pay gap after May.
• Measuring the gender pay gap using total average earnings data (including both full-time and part-time workers, and bonuses and overtime as well as ordinary time wages) indicates that the gender pay gap is 31% across all jobs. That is a more dire, but more accurate, measure of the pay gap than other measures which include only full-time jobs.
• Three major existing and proposed government policies could further widen pay inequality in 2021:
  • The further expansion of casual work and reduced pay for part-time workers, tabled in the omnibus industrial relations bill.
  • Public sector pay caps for both federal and state employees.
  • A high-cost, inaccessible childcare system.

“The gendered nature of the pandemic recession on Australia’s labour market has markedly worsened pay inequality,” said Alison Pennington, senior economist at the Centre for Future Work.

“Women lost jobs at a greater rate than men when the pandemic hit, and as the economy has recovered, are returning to fewer jobs offered on a more casualised basis. The gendered employment recovery is disproportionately leaving women with less hours, security and pay than men—a clear example of why a simple post-COVID “snap back” was never adequate for women.

“Women have been bearing the brunt of the COVID recession while governments have targeted stimulus spending in bloke-heavy industries, neglecting investment in industries that support women’s employment, including healthcare, education and social services. To stop further deterioration in pay inequality, targeted efforts to lift women’s work and earning opportunities is critical.

“Focused investment in women’s job creation, free childcare, and wage-boosting industrial relations policies are all within reach of governments at both federal and state levels.”

A year-end review of the dramatic changes in Australia’s labour market in 2020 has confirmed that the worst economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic were felt by Australians in relatively low-paid, insecure jobs.

Key Findings:

• Workers in casual jobs lost employment at a rate 8 times faster than those in permanent positions
• Part-time workers suffered job losses 3 times worse than full-time workers
• Young workers, women, and workers who do not work in offices also suffered disproportionate job losses during the initial shutdowns – and continue to experience much worse employment conditions
• Worse yet, the report shows the rebound in employment that began in May has seen a historic surge in insecure jobs – which account for the vast majority of new jobs created since the economy began re-opening

“It is painfully ironic that the worst impacts of the pandemic were felt by those who could least afford to lose their work and income,” said Dr Jim Stanford, Director of the Centre for Future Work, and co-author of the report.

“Both on the way down, and on the way back up, this recession has reinforced the dominance of insecure work in Australia’s labour market.

“Precarious work strategies explain why the effects of the pandemic were so painfully unequal, and this new surge in insecure work makes Australians even more vulnerable to such shocks in the future.

“Covid-19 had a terrible impact on both the quantity and quality of work in 2020. Because Australia has been relatively successful in controlling the virus, the labour market could improve significantly in 2021, however, the rapid expansion of insecure work poses a major challenge to the stability and prosperity of Australian households,” Dr Stanford said.

Other findings of the report include:

• Since May, over 400,000 casual jobs have been created (2200 per day, on average), accounting for over 60% of all new waged positions since the recovery started. That is the largest surge in casual employment in Australia’s history – contradicting business and government claims that uncertainty about casual employment rules are holding back hiring.
• Workers over 35 years of age have regained all of the jobs lost in the pandemic, and then some. All remaining job losses are concentrated among workers under 35.
• Office-based occupations (professionals, clerical workers, and most managers) have also regained pre-pandemic employment levels. But other occupations (especially community and personal services, sales workers, and labourers) continue to suffer major employment losses.
• New labour laws proposed by the Commonwealth government would accelerate the surge in insecure work: liberalising the use of casual labour by employers, and allowing them to treat permanent part-time workers more like casuals.

The Centre for Future Work’s 12th annual Go Home on Time Day report shows that, despite total work-hours falling and much of the workforce shifting to ‘work from home’, Australians are currently putting in an average 5.25 hours of unpaid work every week – the equivalent of 7 weeks of full-time work per person, per year.

The report calls for additional protections for people working from home, including limits on hours, overtime pay when relevant, allowances for extra home office expenses, and better OHS rules for home work.

Key Findings:

• Even though total work hours have fallen, and much work has shifted to home, demands for unpaid overtime remain strong
  • On average, workers reported working 5.25 hours of unpaid work per week—an increase from 4.6 in 2019
  • This equates to 273 hours per year, or over 7 weeks of full-time work
  • At the economy-wide level, this equates to $98.6 billion in lost income
• 70% of people doing work from home, are doing at least some of it non-work hours
• 21% of workers indicated that their employers’ expectations of their availability had increased during the COVID-19 crisis
• 28% of workers said their family and/or caring responsibilities had increased as a result of COVID-19
  • Of those employees who had additional caring responsibilities, 27% of men had not received time allowances from their employer to do so. But almost half (45%) of women had not—evidence of an increasing double burden for women
  • 16% of respondents whose employers made time allowances for caring responsibilities reported having lost pay if they were permitted to accommodate caring responsibilities
  • Men were more likely to get flexibility from their employer and retain the same pay (57% of men with increased caring responsibilities), compared to women (39%)

“This year our annual survey of working hours has highlighted an insidious trend: even when you are ‘home’, unpaid overtime is still rife,” said Dan Nahum, economist at the Centre for Future Work and author of the report.

“For many, the reality of working from home is more like living at work.

“One-third of workers indicated that, post-COVID, they expect to work from home more. But without adequate rules and protections, this risks a further incursion of work into people’s personal time, poorer health and safety standards, and greater polarisation between those jobs that can be conducted from home and those that cannot.

“Employers have a duty of care to the worker, regardless of the location of employment, so it is incredibly concerning—for both employers and employees—that 14% of people working from home indicated their home workspace was not appropriate or not safe.

“COVID-19 has clearly heightened the challenge facing workers of balancing their paid jobs, with their responsibilities at home. Our research shows that working from home is no panacea for this balancing act – in fact, in some ways it makes the problem harder.”

New economic research shows up to 12,000 community service jobs are at risk due to the Federal Government’s failure to confirm whether federal funding for community service organisations will be maintained.

The new report released today by the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work demonstrates the economic importance of Commonwealth pay-equity funding at a time when these community services are critical to Australia’s pandemic-damaged economy.

Key Findings:

• The Federal Government is yet to confirm whether it will continue $576.5 million in supplemental funding for federally-supported community services, currently set to expire in the current (2020-21) financial year.
• This special funding was part of the Commonwealth government’s legislated 9-year timetable to phase in pay equity wage adjustments in community services.
• If this funding is not renewed (either by incorporation into a higher level of core funding for affected organisations, or through the extension of explicit pay equity supplements), the resulting funding shortfall will undermine and reverse the progress that has been made toward pay equity since the 2012 pay equity order.
• The loss of federal pay equity supplements would inevitably produce some combination of staffing cuts and wage cuts, as organisations respond to such a significant loss of funding.

“If experienced fully through staff cuts, the end of federal supplements would result in the loss of close to 12,000 jobs in federally-supported community organisations,” said Dr. Jim Stanford, director of the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work.

“Alternatively, if the brunt of the funding cut is experienced through effective wage reductions it would reduce annual incomes for federally-funded community service workers by as much as $15,000 for full-time staff.

“To put up to 12,000 community service jobs at risk, or force community service workers to take a $15,000 a year pay cut in the middle of global pandemic and an economic recession is both heartless and economically self-destructive,” Dr. Stanford said.

The Centre for Future Work report also found that the broad health and social services sector (which includes most of these community service organisations) has reduced the gender pay gap by more than any other industry in the years since the pay equity reform was announced.

Those past gains will be undermined and reversed unless federal funding consistent with new pay equity norms is quickly confirmed.