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Category: Economics

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  • The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work

    Labour Standards & Workers’ Rights, International Relations, Unions & Collective Bargaining, Wages & Entitlements

    Addressing the health workforce crisis in the Pacific

    by Fiona Macdonald, Lisa Heap and Charlie Joyce

    Authors

    Fiona Macdonald

    Acting Director, Centre for Future Work

    Lisa Heap

    Senior Researcher

    Charlie Joyce

    Researcher

    Media release



    Australia dumps its care crisis on the Pacific – new report

    Labour mobility is a significant contributor to Pacific Islands’ economies.

    Australia and New Zealand’s temporary labour migration schemes for Pacific workers have expanded into more industries including personal care work in aged care.

    This has led to the loss of skilled health workers from Pacific Island countries, including registered nurses, to lower-skilled personal care jobs overseas.

    Workers who take up temporary migration in Australia and New Zealand are vulnerable to being underpaid and exploited, due to their visa status.

    This report examines the need for reform of labour migration systems and greater consultation with workers.



    Full report




    Factsheet
    Australia dumps its care crisis on the Pacific – new report

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  • Australia dumps its care crisis on the Pacific – new report

    Australia dumps its care crisis on the Pacific – new report

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    Skilled health workers from Pacific Island countries are being poached to plug Australia’s shortage of care workers, leaving the health systems in their home countries on the brink of collapse, according to new research.

    A report by the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute and Public Services International has also found that when workers get to Australia, many are being deskilled, underpaid and exploited.

    Care workers have been added to the Pacific Australia Labor Mobility (PALM) scheme, traditionally aimed at seasonal agriculture workers like fruit pickers. This has led to skilled health workers – like nurses – quitting their jobs to take up better paid but lower skilled jobs in Australia.

    The report details the harrowing state of the health systems in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Many health services and hospitals have been decimated, operating at 30-40 percent capacity or below.

    The research reveals that not only are Pacific workers doing lower-skilled care jobs in Australia, they are vulnerable to poor treatment, due to their visa status.

    “Workers have the right to cross borders for a better life for themselves and their families,” said Fiona Macdonald, Director of the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute.

    “But the current system is broken. It is rich countries taking from poor countries and giving nothing back. Australia and New Zealand are offloading their own care crises to their Pacific neighbours.

    “Australia has vowed to invest in the health systems of its Pacific neighbours, not destroy them. It should be helping to build better, safer health facilities and train workers, not lure them away.

    “We are taking workers out of a system already at breaking point, giving them jobs which are below their skill level and failing to protect them from exploitation and mistreatment.

    “The recruiting and labour hire systems, including international schemes like PALM, need urgent reform. This should start with meaningful dialogue with the workers themselves.”


    Related research



    Addressing the health workforce crisis in the Pacific



    Full report

  • Addressing the health workforce crisis in the Pacific

    Labour Standards & Workers’ Rights, International Relations, Unions & Collective Bargaining, Wages & Entitlements

    Addressing the health workforce crisis in the Pacific

    by Fiona Macdonald, Lisa Heap and Charlie Joyce

    Authors

    Fiona Macdonald

    Acting Director, Centre for Future Work

    Lisa Heap

    Senior Researcher

    Charlie Joyce

    Researcher

    Media release



    Australia dumps its care crisis on the Pacific – new report

    Labour mobility is a significant contributor to Pacific Islands’ economies.

    Australia and New Zealand’s temporary labour migration schemes for Pacific workers have expanded into more industries including personal care work in aged care.

    This has led to the loss of skilled health workers from Pacific Island countries, including registered nurses, to lower-skilled personal care jobs overseas.

    Workers who take up temporary migration in Australia and New Zealand are vulnerable to being underpaid and exploited, due to their visa status.

    This report examines the need for reform of labour migration systems and greater consultation with workers.



    Full report




    Factsheet
    Australia dumps its care crisis on the Pacific – new report

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  • Go Home On Time Day 2025. As full timers disconnect, part timers are doing more unpaid overtime

    Go Home On Time Day 2025. As full timers disconnect, part timers are doing more unpaid overtime

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    New research by the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute has revealed a disturbing new twist when it comes to unpaid overtime in Australia.

    The research has been released today to mark Go Home On Time Day 2025, an initiative by the Centre for Future Work, now into its 17th year.

    It is the first full year since Right To Disconnect Laws were introduced in Australia, back in August 2024.

    As full time employees and their bosses come to grips with workers’ right to switch off, the burden is shifting to part time and casual employees.

    Overall, Australians are still doing more than three and a half hours of unpaid overtime each week – the equivalent to four and a half full-time weeks per year.

    The average workers is losing nearly  $8000 a year, which is ripping a staggering $95.8 billion a year out of the pockets of Australian workers.

    Key points:

    • Full-time employees average 3.8 hours of unpaid overtime a week. For every ten hours of paid work, they’re working one for nothing.
    • Despite doing significantly fewer hours overall, part-time employees do 3.7 hours of unpaid overtime a week. For every seven hours of paid work, they’re doing nearly an hour for nothing.
    • Younger people (18-24) do the most unpaid overtime at 4.7 hours a week, equivalent to almost one hour of unpaid work for every five paid hours.
    • Unpaid overtime equates to almost 173 hours per year, per worker, more than 4.5 full-time weeks.
    • If that unpaid overtime was valued at median wage rates, the average worker is losing $7,930 a year or $305 a fortnight.
      • Economy-wide, that equates to almost $95.8 billion of lost income a year, which is more than the government spends on the NDIS and Aged Care combined.

    “Australians have been giving their bosses so many free hours for so many years, we were never going to see the level of unpaid overtime suddenly plummet,” said Fiona Macdonald, Director of the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute.

    “The situation for full time workers has stabilised. It’s a good first step. I would say, for them, the right to disconnect is working.

    “But this is the first time we have seen rates of unpaid overtime for part time workers almost as high as full time workers.

    “The right to disconnect is less effective for part time workers and casuals because they are simply not given enough paid hours to do their jobs.

    “Young people who are already on the lowest incomes are bearing the brunt of this trend towards squeezing part timers.

    “However you look at it, Australian workers are being ripped off. The cost of living crisis isn’t over. Now, more than ever, workers should be paid for every single hour they work. ”


  • Too much work and too few paid hours?

    Labour Standards & Workers’ Rights, Wages & Entitlements

    Too much work and too few paid hours?

    Go Home On Time Day 2025
    by Fiona Macdonald

    Author

    Fiona Macdonald

    Acting Director, Centre for Future Work

    Widespread dissatisfaction with paid work hours, and employees working excessive unpaid overtime, are two of the key findings of the 2025 Go Home on Time Day (GHOTD) survey. The annual survey, undertaken by the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute in early September, asked 1,001 Australian workers about their paid working hours and preferences and about any unpaid overtime they worked.

    The findings of the 2025 survey, marking the seventeenth Go Home on Time Day, are not dissimilar to the 2024 survey findings. A large minority of Australian workers would prefer either more or fewer paid work hours. Mostly, workers who are dissatisfied with their hours want more paid work hours (44% of all workers), while a smaller group (14%) want less paid work time.  Alongside the desire for more work many employees are working several hours of unpaid overtime each week. This is the case for employees of all ages and for men and women across most industries and occupations. The 2025 GHOTD survey found, on average, employees work unpaid overtime of 3.6 hours a week, equivalent to 173 hours, or over 4.5 weeks, a year. Paid at the median wage rate this amounts to a financial cost to each worker of $7,930 per year; in total a loss of $95.78 billion.

    A positive finding from the 2025 survey is that unpaid overtime among full-time employees appears to be continuing a slow decline, noted in 2024. This suggests the “Right to Disconnect” legislation, introduced for employees in large organisations in August 2024, may be having its intended impact. The legislation was only extended to small businesses in August 2025, so we might expect to see further declines in unpaid overtime in 2026. A less positive finding is that unpaid overtime is high among part-time and casual employees, many of whom are younger workers. The costs of unpaid overtime to these workers are substantial–especially when considered as a proportion of their paid work time, given their shorter paid work hours and often lower pay rates.

    Read the full report



    Full report

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  • Want to lift workers’ productivity? Let’s start with their bosses

    Want to lift workers’ productivity? Let’s start with their bosses

    by David Peetz in The New Daily

    David Peetz

    Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow

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    Originally published in The New Daily on August 18, 2025

    Business representatives sit down today with government and others to talk about productivity. Who, according to those business representatives, will need to change the way they do things?

    The elephant in the room is that it is business that has the biggest influence on productivity. Certainly, it has a much bigger impact than workers, who typically get the blame when things go wrong.

    The factor that most shapes how productive workers are, we must remember, is the technology they work with. It is management that is responsible for the decisions about what technology a business introduces, and how. Workers often do not have much of a say.

    It is not workers who make the decisions about how much money is available for investment. It is not workers who make the decision about which particular technologies to buy, install and use. It is not workers who decide how much money should be allocated to the training of workers to use the new technology, or how those workers should be deployed. It is management.

    Sure, there is lots of evidence that, when workers have a say at work, productivity is higher. But managers often don’t give them a chance to have more than a token say, if they have any say at all. Any attempts by governments to legislate that workers decide or influence decisions on those matters are opposed by business bodies in Australia.

    How much effort workers put in to their job also shapes productivity. But lazy workers don’t last long in jobs these days, and most restrictive work practices went out the window in the 1980s. If a business continued to use workers who do not put effort into their job, the finger would very quickly be pointed at the managers who decided to do that and to not have the performance management systems that would overcome that problem.

    Some characteristics of workers do make a difference, but they are often still matters in the hands of management to control.

    Output will be better with an educated and skilled workforce. If people can do more things with their brains, they will be more productive. Yet management decides on the qualifications demanded of successful applicants for jobs. Management decides how much pay to offer to attract qualified workers to apply for and fill skilled vacancies. Management decides on the training provided to workers.

    Management decides on job quality which, studies show, is positively related to performance.

    Management decides on how much a business pursues diversity, equity and inclusion practices, which (despite shenanigans in the US) have also been shown to benefit innovation and firm performance.

    So it’s no surprise that a couple of years ago the Productivity Commission, after looking at OECD evidence, said that the “productivity gains from upskilling managers could be three times higher than for upskilling workers”.

    The problem for Australia is that, overall, the quality of Australian management is not that good. One survey showed that Australia “ranks low in almost all the people management dimensions”.

    The Productivity Commission commented in its 2023 five-yearly review that “managerial capability varies, but generally lags other countries” and observed that “limited management capability may be holding back Australia’s productivity growth”. It added that its consultations had “provided insights into some of the consequences for innovation of poor management capability”.

    The main response by top management seems to be to pay itself more. But a study as far back as 2004 found that the average pay gap between CEO pay and average earnings was “at least three times higher than that required to maximise organisational performance”. Leaders might say they’re tied to performance bonuses, but somehow when profits go down, the formula or the base get changed, and the CEO’s pay packet is saved.

    When that doesn’t increase productivity, it’s blame the unions. But that wears a bit thin when only one in eight workers is unionised these days. Or cut penalty rates, or some other aspect of workers’ pay! But lower wages just reduce the incentive to introduce new technology.

    What the studies do show about the impact of workplace relations on productivity is that it’s not whether a workforce is unionised that matters, it’s the quality of relations between workers and management that counts — and that is very much in the hands of management.

    After all, research shows that workers do want a co-operative relationship with management — which, despite management wishes, is not the same as acquiescing to every management whim. If their union didn’t want co-operation, the workers would quit the union. The trouble is, if management didn’t want genuine co-operation, it will just blame the workers, and up its own pay because it’s dealing with a difficult situation.

    There are no prizes for expecting business to blame others for Australia’s productivity problems. But an honest debate would look at what management can do better.


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  • Feeling hopeless? You’re not alone. The untold story behind Australia’s plummeting standard of living

    Feeling hopeless? You’re not alone. The untold story behind Australia’s plummeting standard of living

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    A new report on Australia’s standard of living has found that low real wages, underfunded public services and skyrocketing prices have left many families experiencing hardship and hopelessness.

    But the report, Solving the Crisis – Raising Living Standards of Australian Workers, also concludes that there is hope, and suggests a range of reforms to improve our way of life.

    Compiled by the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute, the report found that official inflation data does not reflect the pressure families are experiencing as they struggle to afford essentials like food, housing and energy.

    It found the Reserve Bank of Australia’s response to high inflation – repeatedly lifting interest rates – was a case of victim-blaming and acted as a double punishment for working families.

    Among the recommendations in the Solving the Crisis report:

    • Treating housing as a human right
    • Embedding employment targets in the Charter of Budget Honesty
    • Restoring the minimum wage to a minimum of 60% of the median wage
    • Greater investment and fast-tracking of clean, affordable, renewable energy
    • Making fossil fuel mining companies pay their fair share of taxes and royalties
    • Raising all income support payments to the level of the age pension
    • Fixing the broken employment services system
    • Abolishing the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing
    • Better funding of Medicare, public hospitals, early childhood education and care, and public schools

    “Productivity might be the word on everyone’s lips in the lead up to the economic reform roundtable. But weak productivity isn’t the cause of many of the problems facing Australian families today,” said Lisa Heap, Senior Researcher, Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute.

    “The key to raising living standards is focusing on the experience of workers and their families with a multidimensional approach rather than a narrow concentration on productivity.”

    “There are better, fairer alternatives to managing economic challenges than simply tightening workers’ collective belts,” said Fiona Macdonald, Director, Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute.

    “By centring workers’ experiences and building a robust evidence base, we have mapped a path to a progressive economic agenda that lifts living standards, reduces inequality, and strengthens democracy.”

    “The inflation crisis was caused by unchecked corporate power and profit-seeking behaviour like price gouging – not the spending of ordinary Australians,” said Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute.


    Related research



    Solving the crisis: Raising the living standards of Australian workers



    Solving the Crisis: Raising the living standards of Australian workers

  • Solving the crisis: Raising the living standards of Australian workers

    Employment & Unemployment, Future of Work, Inequality, Labour Standards & Workers’ Rights, Social Security & Welfare, Unions & Collective Bargaining, Wages & Entitlements

    Solving the crisis: Raising the living standards of Australian workers

    by Lisa Heap

    Author

    Lisa Heap

    Senior Researcher

    Media release



    Feeling hopeless? You’re not alone. The untold story behind Australia’s plummeting standard of living

    Productivity might be the word on everyone’s lips in the lead up to the Albanese Government’s Economic Reform Roundtable  however weak productivity isn’t the cause of many of the problems experience by workers in Australia today nor is increasing productivity the solution. Rapid inflation after the pandemic, combined with rising interest rates and slow wage growth, left many Australian households struggling to afford necessities. The Reserve Bank’s (RBA) blunt strategy of raising interest rates to slow the economy post the pandemic both misdiagnosed the drivers of inflation and harmed Australian workers who struggled to manage increased mortgage repayments and other debts. The root causes of Australia’s post pandemic crisis—rising corporate profits, unjustifiable price hikes, and deep wage stagnation were ignored by the RBA.

    Despite a reduction in inflation and interest rates, too many Australians are still experiencing lower living standards after the turbulent events of the past five years. Official inflation figures may capture broad economic trends however, they do not adequately describe the real pressures experienced by working people—particularly when it comes to the impact of the increasing costs of essentials like food, housing, and energy. Australian workers can ill afford another round of RBA driven unemployment, austerity, and uncertainty.

    What will it take to repair the damage to Australian workers’ living standards?

    In a new publication, Solving the Crisis: Raising the Living standards of Australian workers, some of Australia’s leading progressive economists and social policy analysts explain what is going on and how to fix it. The origins of the current crisis in living standards are documented. A progressive policy agenda for a second term Albanese Government is advanced.

    The multidimensional policy agenda in Solving the Crisis calls for

    • increases in real wages
    • achieving full employment
    • better quality jobs and greater assistance and respect for those seeking employment
    • strengthening public services (including health care, childcare, aged care and education)
    • making fair and affordable housing available
    • developing a well-planned and supported transition to renewable energy sources.

    The key to the success of this agenda is centering the experience of workers’ and their families.

    Australia should adopt a progressive multidimensional economic agenda that lifts living standards, reduces inequality, and strengthens democracy, rather than a narrow concentration on productivity. Uniting people behind this progressive economic agenda helps counter the trend towards increasing inequality, division and conflict, that has been present in other countries.

    How to solve the living standards crisis

    Four policy papers are the core of  Solving the Crisis. These papers examine the main drivers of inequality and deteriorating living standards in Australia

    • Greg Jericho examines how inflation is misunderstood when disconnected from wage growth. He proposes a shift in Reserve Bank policy and a renewed focus on promoting real wage increases.
    • Peter Davidson  argues that growing inequality is not inevitable. Through strengthening the four key policy pillars – income support, minimum wages, full employment, and employment services – minimum incomes can be raised and inequality reduced.
    • Thomas Greenwell highlights how decades of declining collective bargaining and high underemployment have undermined living standards. He calls for renewed support for unions, stronger collective bargaining systems, and a focus on full employment in macroeconomic policy.
    • Charlie Joyce revisits the concept of the social wage—and argues that rebuilding and expanding the social wage can raise living standards, promote inclusion, and restore trust in democratic institutions.

    Together these papers provide practical policy solutions forming a platform for economic reform.

    Solving the Crisis helps working people to help cut through economic misinformation and political spin, offering a clear lens on the structural factors that have driven inequality and declining living standards.

    Progress is happening

    In its first term the Albanese Government has made cautious progress on living standards. This progress includes labour market reforms that have contributed to stronger wage growth. These reforms include supporting increases in the minimum wage, facilitating collective bargaining in hard-to-organise industries, funding support for wage increase in early childhood education and aged care. Cost-of-living measures, like energy rebates and expanded renter assistance, also provide important support to hard-hit households. Meanwhile, the easing of interest rates by the RBA—better late than never, may support future growth and job-creation.

    However, while prices are growing more slowly, the levels of many prices remain too high—especially for necessities like food, housing, and energy. Wages growth may have commenced however at the current pace, it will take several years to repair real wages, and restore the same purchasing power for workers they enjoyed before the pandemic. The quality of public services (another critical determinant of living standards) has been damaged by underfunding and overreliance on privatised provision, the costs of which we are currently seeing in early childhood education and care. Minimum income payments such as Jobseeker remain woefully inadequate. The system designed to support and assist people from unemployment into decent jobs is broken beyond repair. Meanwhile, global economic and geopolitical uncertainty threatens to derail this modest recovery before it really gets going.

    More work to be done

    At the 2025 federal election the Australian people rejected political parties proposing cuts to public services, short-term fixes (like petrol tax cuts), and the politics of division. In its second term the Albanese Government has a unique opportunity to implement progressive policy changes such as those contained in Solving the Crisis.

    More details about Solving the Crisis and additional resources are available at https://www.carmichaelcentre.org.au/living_standards.



    Solving the Crisis: Raising the living standards of Australian workers

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  • A smooth move or a tough transition? Protecting workers who’ll lose their jobs when the Eraring Power Station closes

    A smooth move or a tough transition? Protecting workers who’ll lose their jobs when the Eraring Power Station closes

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    The Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute has urged the federal government to take charge of transitioning hundreds of workers into secure employment when the Eraring Power Station shuts down.

    The power station is scheduled to close by August 2027. More than 1000 workers will be directly impacted by the closure.

    This is an important test in Australia’s transition from fossil fuel power to renewables.

    The Centre for Future Work has written a submission to the Net Zero Economy Agency (NZEA) urging it to apply its Energy Industry Jobs Plan to the Eraring closure, to avoid inflicting undue pain on workers currently employed at the power station.

    In the submission, it argues that this important process should not be left solely to the power station owner, Origin Energy, but managed under the Energy Industry Jobs Plan, which was set up for this precise purpose.

    “We hear a lot about how the transition to a clean energy future involves helping workers in the coal and gas industry secure jobs when theirs disappear,” said Charlie Joyce, Researcher, Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute.

    “To help this process, the government set up the Net Zero Economy Authority, which established an Energy Industry Jobs Plan, designed specifically to support workers who’ll lose their jobs when coal and gas power stations close down.

    “Well, now the nation’s biggest coal-fired power station is closing down. It’s time for this plan to deliver.

    “Origin has made some noise about helping workers with retraining and career counselling, but that’s not enough. This impacts far more than those employed directly by Origin Energy. It requires coordination with industry, unions, and the broader community.

    “The nation will be watching how the Eraring closure unfolds. This is an important test for transitioning workers into good, secure jobs.

    “It would be senseless for the Net Zero Economy Authority not to use its Energy Industry Jobs Plan in this situation.  This is what it was set up to do.”


  • Australia does not have a “productivity crisis” – new research

    Australia does not have a “productivity crisis” – new research

    by Jim Stanford

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    New research by The Australia Institute reveals there is little evidence of a “productivity crisis” in Australia, despite claims to the contrary from business leaders and politicians. 

    Like the rest of the world, productivity has been sluggish since the COVID pandemic, but that is largely due to businesses failing to adequately invest in machinery, equipment, technology and skills, at a time when many are recording record profits.

    The research also reveals that disappointing productivity is not the cause of the problems facing Australian households, like falling real wages, high prices, high interest rates and the unaffordability of housing.

    Key findings:

    • If real wages had grown at the same rate of productivity since 2000, average wages would be 18% – or $350 per week – higher.
    • Australian businesses now invest less than half as much in research and development as those in other OECD countries.
    • Higher productivity does not automatically “trickle down” to workers in terms of improved wages or living standards.
    • Productivity benefits are trending toward high-paid executives, shareholders and profits, rather than workers.
    • Business claims that productivity can be improved by wage cuts, tax cuts, deregulation or reduced unionisation are false.
    • The idea that workers should “tighten their belts and make do with less” to improve productivity is a lie.

    “Productivity has become an excuse for big, profitable businesses to do whatever they like,” said Greg Jericho, Chief Economist at The Australia Institute‘s Centre for Future Work.

    “Peter Dutton said he’d tear up the new right-to-disconnect laws, saying they hampered productivity, as if allowing employers to call staff any time of the day or night would somehow make them more efficient. This research dispels that kind of nonsense.

    “Australia’s so-called ‘productivity crisis’ is massively exaggerated. Low productivity is not to blame for the problems facing households today, like soaring interest rates, prices or low wage growth.

    “This research also shows that sluggish productivity is caused by companies investing far less in things like machinery, equipment and research.

    “The benefits of productivity should not go straight to profits, shareholders or fat cat CEOs. They should be shared with workers in the form of wages which grow at a similar rate.

    “That way productivity would deliver its true purpose: to provide economic prosperity and a higher quality of life for everyone.”


    Related research



    Productivity in the Real World



    Productivity in the Real World