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  • Expansion of Employer Power to Use Casual Work Hurts Women Most

    Expansion of Employer Power to Use Casual Work Hurts Women Most

    by Alison Pennington in Michael West Media

    Alison Pennington

    Senior Economist

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    Originally published in Michael West Media on March 24, 2021

    As women lead mobilisations against workplace gendered violence, the federal government passed legislation expanding employer power to use insecure, casual labour in its IR bill – laws that will disproportionately impact the pay and security of women’s jobs.

    In this commentary, Senior Economist Alison Pennington explains how new casuals measures and the government’s wider economic policies – including in industrial relations, childcare, welfare, and fiscal spending – significantly undermine the economic security of women, entrench pay inequality, and ultimately, increase their vulnerability to gendered violence.

    This commentary was originally published in Michael West Media.

    Crocodile tears no mask for Coalition’s economic war on women

    Well may Scott Morrison tear up as he relates how his daughters, wife and widowed mother drive his every decision. The facts are that every move of the Coalition government ensures women are poorer, more insecure at work and more vulnerable to violence on the job. The Industrial Relations bill pushed through last week is a final nail in the coffin for women. Alison Pennington reports.

    After a month of anger from women around the country about sexual harassment and the treatment of women in the workplace, federal parliament passed legislation last week that will strike a massive, lasting blow to women’s job quality and pay, entrenching pay inequality and exacerbating women’s economic insecurity.

    The mainstream media has mainly focused on the fact that most of the Industrial Relations bill didn’t pass. But the cornerstone of the legislation – and the primary reason for its inception, pre-pandemic, by business lobbyists – did.

    A new legal definition of casual work will allow employers to call any job a casual one. Jobs can now look and smell like permanent jobs, except that employers can legally engage you as a casual, stripping away your legal entitlements at will.

    So-called “permanency conversion” rights in the legislation are so weak that employers will easily craft employment arrangements to lock in casual jobs long-term.

    Employers will simply vary rosters

    Employers will vary rosters sufficiently to ensure that employees will never reach the benchmarks of six and 12 months of regular schedules that should lead to permanency. In any case, employers will be allowed to refuse offers on “reasonable grounds”. And small businesses, which employ a huge 44% of all private sector employees, are exempted entirely.

    The federal government’s new casual laws will expand the incidence of casual work. Women will disproportionately suffer in a labour market with diminishing opportunities to obtain secure, decent jobs because women are more likely to be in casual roles (filling 54% of all casual positions). And women’s vulnerability to casualisation is growing. Women accounted for 62% of all new casual jobs created in the period from May to November 2020.

    Casual workers are not compensated

    Despite claims from employers that casual workers are compensated for the loss of entitlements and lack of predictability in rosters and tenure, nothing could be further from the truth.

    Casual workers are, on average, paid far less than employees in permanent roles. Median weekly earnings of full-time casuals were 23% lower ($1080 per week) than those in permanent roles ($1400 per week), and 45% lower for casual part-time workers ($390 per week) compared with permanent part-time workers on $720 per week.

    The expansion of the power of employers to use casual work in a jobs market awash with many hungry mouths desperate for paid work means more women in lower-paying, insecure jobs.

    The government’s decision to subject the unemployed to a below-poverty JobSeeker rate means more women reliant on employers to survive. At every move the Liberal National party government is making Australian women poorer, more insecure and more vulnerable to violence on the job.

    Women return to lower quality jobs

    Treasurer Josh Frydenberg celebrates the recent fall in the unemployment rate to 5.8 per cent, claiming the recovery is well under way. But the detailed job quality data tell a very different story for women.

    Women workers are “snapping back” to a world of paid work on inferior terms compared with men – fewer hours, less pay and less security.

    Casual jobs accounted for 64.3% of the total growth in women’s employment from May to November last year.

    Alarmingly, more than half of all the growth in women’s employment over the six-month period was in both low-hours and insecure work, with 52.4% of total growth in employees in part-time casual jobs.

    Traditional full-time permanent jobs with normal entitlements (such as paid sick leave, holidays and superannuation) represented a dismal 10.4% of female employment growth from May through November.

    It’s a crude fact that as women’s casual jobs were booming, business lobbyists were pushing for passage of the IR Bill on the basis that employers “lacked confidence” to hire casuals due to legal “uncertainty”. Australia was simultaneously experiencing the largest and fastest increase in casual employment in its history.

    More fuel for gender pay gap fire

    The consequences of an employment recovery overwhelmingly concentrated in part-time and casual jobs for women is more fuel for the gender pay gap fire.

    The gender pay gap is most often measured by comparing the earnings of men and women in full-time jobs. But women face persistent barriers to workforce participation – including unaffordable childcare, lack of family-friendly work arrangements, and workplace discrimination. Consequently, almost half (45.1%) of all employed women are in part-time work.

    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 – a more dire, but more accurate, measure of the pay gap.

    Ironically, the gender pay gap narrowed in the early stages of pandemic and recession. From late-2019 to May 2020, the gap between male and female total wage incomes declined from 31.4% to 29.6% – down by 1.8 percentage points.

    But this did not represent “progress” in pay equality. The gap only closed because more than 300,000 women in low-paid casual roles lost their jobs, which increased the average earnings of those women who were able to stay connected to the workforce.

    How good’s “snap back”?

    As the economy recovered from May last year, an influx of women’s lower-paying jobs widened the gender pay gap again, just as quickly. How good’s “snap back”?

    Instead of improving the quantity and quality of jobs for women, governments have actively pursued policies that will exacerbate pay inequality this year and into the future.

    In addition to casual work changes pushed through in the IR bill, two other policies create higher barriers to women’s participation in paid work, and suppress their pay once they get on the job.

    The federal government and all states and territories (bar Tasmania and Victoria) have imposed punitive and counterproductive public sector wage freezes and caps on their workforces. This suppression of public sector pay hurts women most because they account for 61.7% of all public sector jobs.

    The failure of government to provide affordable, quality childcare presents another major barrier to women’s paid work opportunities. After dangling free childcare in front of families early in the pandemic, the federal government cut supports and reintroduced fees after just three months.

    The return of full-fee, high-cost childcare prices women out of paid work. More than half of women with young children outside the workforce list childcare costs as a key factor in their decision not to work. A childcare system that lets a small number of profit-driven providers determine access denies families and their children access to critical developmental education and much-needed community bonds as people emerge from pandemic-era isolation.

    Rebuilding women’s economic security requires a very different approach from the bankrupt austerity agenda of government. Women need more and better quality jobs, free childcare, a superannuation system that provides genuine income security and an employment relations system that works to lift the quality, pay and safety of their jobs, not undermine it.


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    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs

    by Charlie Joyce

    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs As Australia’s federal election campaign has finally begun, opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to spend hundreds of billions in public money to build seven nuclear power plants across the country has been carefully scrutinized. The technological unfeasibility, staggering cost, and scant detail of the Coalition’s nuclear proposal have

    Australia’s Gas Use On The Slide

    by Ketan Joshi

    The Federal Government has released a new report that includes projections of how much gas Australia is set to use over the coming decades. There is no ambiguity in its message: Australia reached peak gas years ago, and it’s all downhill from here:

  • Yes, lockdowns mean lost jobs. But data shows that not locking down causes much more economic damage

    Yes, lockdowns mean lost jobs. But data shows that not locking down causes much more economic damage

    by Jim Stanford in Toronto Star

    Jim Stanford

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    Originally published in Toronto Star on January 16, 2021

    With new stay-at-home orders covering many parts of the province, Ontarians are settling in for a month (at least) of daunting isolation. Restrictions are also being tightened in other provinces to slow the spread of COVID-19, until vaccines can turn the tide of the pandemic.

    Despite accelerating infection and overflowing hospitals, many oppose the new restrictions on grounds that their economic costs are just too high. Business lobbyists grumble that health rules on retailers, airlines, cinemas, ski resorts, gyms, and more are onerous and unfair. Each sector invokes comparisons to others which supposedly get off easier. The common thread in their resistance is an assumption that strong health restrictions are deeply damaging the economy.

    As the pandemic rolls on, however, it is increasingly clear that the best way to protect the economy is to stop COVID. Yes: lockdowns reduce economic activity and employment. But not locking down, letting the virus run rampant, causes more economic damage — on top of the toll in lives and suffering. Anyone concerned about the economy should be pleading for fast, powerful lockdowns, not demanding a return to business-as-usual.

    The correlation between controlling contagion and economic recovery is clear across Canadian provinces: those with fewer COVID cases have achieved the strongest employment results since the pandemic hit. It’s not often that New Brunswick leads the nation in employment growth — but it did last year. Its near-elimination of the virus was the obvious reason.

    In this context, the protestations of premiers Doug Ford and Jason Kenney that fighting COVID must be “balanced” against the interests of business were always self-defeating. Even if they were motivated solely by desire to protect business, their top priority should have been stopping COVID. The faster and harder that battle was waged, the better business fared.

    The correlation between COVID suppression and economic performance is also obvious in international data. Several countries moved fast with severe but temporary restrictions on mobility and business; and they are now harvesting the fruits of their foresight. COVID-slaying nations like Australia, China, New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan are already enjoying powerful and sustained economic recoveries. Their economies (forecast to grow by five to eight per cent this year) are racing far ahead of those still lurching from one wave of infection to the next.

    No one escaped the economic fallout of the pandemic. But after powerful action to suppress contagion, these countries are now recovering strongly and predictably. Elsewhere, the economic outlook is far less certain. In Canada, for example, our hopeful summertime recovery is already disintegrating: employment is now falling again. America, Britain, and other places where COVID suppression failed miserably are faring even worse.

    A particularly powerful illustration of the link between public health and economic recovery is provided by the experience of Victoria, the second largest state in Australia. After initial success limiting COVID-19’s spread, a second wave took hold in Melbourne (Victoria’s capital), infecting 600 people per day by early August. The state government ordered a strict lockdown, more severe than anything yet experienced in Canada: overnight curfew, closure of most workplaces, and strict bans on social gatherings and travel.

    The government was pilloried for its response — facing sustained attacks from its federal counterpart, business groups, and conservative commentators, all lamenting Victoria’s descent into “dictatorship.” Yet after 111 long days, Victoria achieved something almost unheard of: mass community spread was stopped, and new cases fell to zero by late October. Now the state economy is blossoming: employment rebounded 2.2 per cent in November alone, retail sales grew 22 per cent the same month, and Victorians are flocking back to restaurants, pubs, and malls. All those CEOs whining about Canada’s late and half-hearted restrictions must be drooling with envy.

    Leaders like Kenney and Ford were unduly influenced by short-sighted concern with business profits. Their reticence has created needless harm, for both public health and the economy. If we’d moved faster and more powerfully to limit contagion, business would already be better off.

    The economy is made up of human beings who work, produce, and consume. There’s no tradeoff between the economy and the health of those same human beings. The sooner we recognize they are one and the same, the sooner we can finally get serious about winning this battle.

    Jim Stanford, director of the Centre for Future Work in Vancouver, is a freelance contributing columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: @jimbostanford


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    Commonwealth Budget 2025-2026: Our analysis

    by Fiona Macdonald

    The Centre for Future Work’s research team has analysed the Commonwealth Government’s budget, focusing on key areas for workers, working lives, and labour markets. As expected with a Federal election looming, the budget is not a horror one of austerity. However, the 2025-2026 budget is characterised by the absence of any significant initiatives. There is

    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs

    by Charlie Joyce

    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs As Australia’s federal election campaign has finally begun, opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to spend hundreds of billions in public money to build seven nuclear power plants across the country has been carefully scrutinized. The technological unfeasibility, staggering cost, and scant detail of the Coalition’s nuclear proposal have

  • The Pandemic is Our Clarion Call to Rebuild Good Jobs

    The Pandemic is Our Clarion Call to Rebuild Good Jobs

    by Alison Pennington in The Age

    Alison Pennington

    Senior Economist

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    Originally published in The Age on November 5, 2020

    Victorians emerging from lockdowns now confront Australia’s harsh COVID-era work reality marked by more insecure jobs, mass unemployment, and long-term work at the kitchen table.

    In this commentary, which originally appeared in The Age, Centre for Future Work Senior Economist Alison Pennington discusses what the pandemic reveals about Australia’s high levels of insecure work, new work-from-home risks, and how rebuilding more secure labour markets will be critical to creating more good jobs in our post-COVID recovery.


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    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs

    by Charlie Joyce

    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs As Australia’s federal election campaign has finally begun, opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to spend hundreds of billions in public money to build seven nuclear power plants across the country has been carefully scrutinized. The technological unfeasibility, staggering cost, and scant detail of the Coalition’s nuclear proposal have

  • Unleashing a National Reconstruction Plan Fit for Our Era

    Unleashing a National Reconstruction Plan Fit for Our Era

    by Alison Pennington in Newcastle Herald

    Alison Pennington

    Senior Economist

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    Originally published in Newcastle Herald on June 9, 2020

    Our nation is confronting the most significant economic challenge in nearly a century. Australia’s own experience of long-term, sustained public investment during post-war reconstruction shows direct tools of government planning and investment will be essential to our recovery today. Yet Scott Morrison continues to pretend his hands are tied: “if there’s no business, there’s no jobs, there’s no income, there’s nothing.”

    In this commentary originally published in the Newcastle Herald Centre for Future Work Senior Economist Alison Pennington explains why Australia needs a public spending program proportionate to the nature, speed and depth of this crisis, and outlines some priorities for a public-led post-COVID-19 reconstruction plan.

    Why governments must spend, spend, spend to save the Australian economy

    Our nation faces the most significant economic challenge in nearly a century. GDP will likely contract at least 20 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels, with millions of jobs already on the scrapheap.

    Unbelievably, a top priority for governments has become freezing or cutting wages, public sector pay freezes and an industrial relations power play to kill the Awards system.

    Recent research on impacts of the NSW government’s proposed public sector wage freeze shows over 1100 jobs will be lost from workers’ lower consumption.

    Cutting wages and dooming working people to poverty is senseless. But governments refuse to learn from our own historical crisis responses in the GFC and the Great Depression.

    We recovered from the GFC better than other countries because government invested in keeping people in jobs (key word here is “invested”).

    Others countries that walked the austerity path were mired for years with lower growth and higher unemployment.

    But stimulus soon ran dry and critical failures of the business-led economy were painfully evident before the pandemic: declining business investment in new capital and innovation; the slowest sustained pace of wages growth since WWII; rising inequality; an explosion in insecure jobs and the labour underutilisation rate.

    It will be impossible for this emaciated economy to “snap back”. We need a powerful public policy response proportionate to the nature, speed and depth of this crisis. Discrete government stimulus programs will not cut it.

    But Scott Morrison continues to pretend his hands are tied: “if there’s no business, there’s no jobs, there’s no income, there’s nothing.” Market ideologues said this for 10 years during the Depression.

    They tried to convince people government was powerless to fix joblessness and protect living standards, heralding a private-sector recovery that never came.

    But there is something called public investment, Prime Minister. It’s what we did on a mass coordinated scale to ensure we didn’t return to the economic and social turmoil of the Depression.

    And it’s this fully-fledged comprehensive national government spending program we need now.

    Government must break the investment gridlock. There are many priorities for a public-led post-COVID-19 reconstruction plan including: repairing and expanding our public healthcare and education systems; a sustained public investment program, for transportation, energy, utilities, and social housing; and building our renewable energy systems and networks.

    We have the most educated generation in our history, and young workers have been disproportionately affected by the decline in hours worked and unemployment in this crisis.

    Let’s expand genuine career pathways before we lose a generation of skills, passion and potential.

    Universities have been decimated by the loss of foreign students and exclusion from the JobKeeper wage subsidy.

    Meanwhile, the disastrously privatised VET system cannot meet the needs of our economy for skilled workers. We need a complete reconstruction of the post-secondary skills system, with government funding injected into pillar institutions in both public universities and TAFE.

    Ensuring public money is targeted to people’s needs demands greater participation across all levels of society.

    We need to open avenues for collective representation – not shut them down. In the rebuild, we need new localised reconstruction and jobs plans, especially for regional communities rebuilding from bushfires, anti-union laws lifted and a new sectoral bargaining system to increase participation and coordination of workers across industries.

    The only actor with sufficient investment power and planning capacity to lead economic reconstruction is government.

    With the private sector wounded, it’s time we got comfortable with invoking direct tools of public investment, tools forced out of favour during a generation of market-worshipping neoliberal policy but which are essential to our recovery today.

    This is a historic crossroads moment.

    Should government refuse to take up the investment mantle they will plunge millions into misery only to endow a smaller layer of business the power to restructure a harsher, more unequal economy.

    In 1942, years before the war ended, our national government formed a National Reconstruction Department to begin planning for post-war rebuilding.

    We can unleash another national reconstruction plan fit for our era. One with a commitment to full employment at its heart, that pulls us through COVID-19 with stronger public services, and paves our way to a sustainable future.


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    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs

    by Charlie Joyce

    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs As Australia’s federal election campaign has finally begun, opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to spend hundreds of billions in public money to build seven nuclear power plants across the country has been carefully scrutinized. The technological unfeasibility, staggering cost, and scant detail of the Coalition’s nuclear proposal have

    Centre For Future Work to evolve into standalone entity

    The Centre for Future Work was established by the Australia Institute in 2016 to conduct and publish progressive economic research on work, employment, and labour markets. Supported by the Australian Union movement, the centre produced cutting edge research and led the national conversation on economic issues facing working people: including the future of jobs, wages

  • Webinar: Protecting Jobs and Incomes During the Pandemic

    Webinar: Protecting Jobs and Incomes During the Pandemic

    by Jim Stanford

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    The COVID-19 pandemic is producing an unprecedented shutdown of large parts of the national and global economies. Our Director Dr. Jim Stanford provided an overview of the coming recession, how it differs from previous downturns, and the best ways for government to respond to protect Australians as much as possible from the economic fall-out.

    Jim titled his presentation “Off the Cliff”, highlighting that the immediate shutdown of so much of Australia’s work and production is producing an economic contraction unlike anything experienced in history.

    Comparing Recessions

    Watch a video recording of the webinar:

    And/or download Jim’s slides below.

    This webinar was part of the Australia Institute’s weekly pandemic webinar series.


    Related documents



    Presentation slides

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    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs

    by Charlie Joyce

    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs As Australia’s federal election campaign has finally begun, opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to spend hundreds of billions in public money to build seven nuclear power plants across the country has been carefully scrutinized. The technological unfeasibility, staggering cost, and scant detail of the Coalition’s nuclear proposal have

  • Open Letter From Economists and Policy Experts: Wage Subsidy to Protect Jobs During Pandemic

    Open Letter From Economists and Policy Experts: Wage Subsidy to Protect Jobs During Pandemic

    by Jim Stanford

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    109 Australian economists and policy experts have signed an open letter, initiated by the Centre for Future Work, supporting a government wage subsidy to prevent mass unemployment during the coming economic downturn resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

    The letter and the full list of signatories is reprinted below. It has been forwarded to Prime Minister Morrison.

    Public Statement from Economists and Public Policy Experts:

    A Wage Subsidy to Protect Jobs During the Coronavirus Shutdown

    The unprecedented public health measures required to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic are causing a dramatic shutdown of work and production in several key sectors of Australia’s economy. Immediate full or partial closures of activity are occurring in several consumer-facing industries (such as hospitality, retail, airlines, recreation and personal services). But before long, spillover losses will be experienced in other sectors, too: including wholesale trade and logistics, manufacturing, business services, education, and others. Consumer and business confidence has been deeply shocked, and that will magnify the negative economic effects of the pandemic.

    The coming recession will be unprecedented in Australian history – in both its speed and its depth. Without immediate action, we expect that 1-2 million workers, or even more, could lose their jobs in coming weeks. That would drive unemployment to 15% or higher, overwhelm income support programs, and leave hundreds of thousands of businesses unable to function – even after the immediate health danger passes.

    This is a dangerous and dramatic moment in Australia’s economic history. It is imperative that the federal and state governments act immediately and powerfully to protect Australian workers and businesses from the worst of the coming downturn. Important steps have been taken to expand access and benefit levels for income support payments to Australian workers (including casuals, contractors, and gig workers) losing work because of the pandemic. This is a helpful, but on its own inadequate, response. Government must also act forcefully to prevent mass job losses in coming weeks – not just provide support to those who do lose work.

    In this regard, we recommend that the Commonwealth government immediately implement a large-scale wage subsidy scheme, similar to those already enacted in several other industrial countries (including, variously, the UK, Denmark, New Zealand, the Netherlands, South Korea, and Ireland). Under these programs, government directly pays to employers (for a limited period of time) a majority portion of wages (between 70 and 90%) to cover the wages of workers who would otherwise be stood down from their positions. The measure can apply to non-standard workers (including contractors and self-employed). It can also be integrated with measures to support short time working as an alternative to complete redundancy. The wage subsidy is paid to firms experiencing severe losses of revenue and business (beyond a specified threshold). It would cover most of the wage bills for workers who can no longer work for economic reasons, up to a specified ceiling (perhaps the level of full-time median earnings). This program will be expensive – but governments everywhere have recognised that this unprecedented crisis requires them to do everything in their power to protect people, jobs, communities and the economy.

    To date, Australia’s response to the pandemic has been uncertain, inconsistent and inadequate. Immediate, powerful action to keep millions of Australians in their jobs, instead of pushing them into an overloaded and complex Centrelink system, would significantly ease the pandemic’s painful economic effects. It would underpin financial stability for millions of households through the coming terrible weeks or months. And it would preserve the viability of hundreds of thousands of Australian businesses, allowing them to resume work and production as soon as the health restrictions are eased.

    We the undersigned support the proposal for a strong wage subsidy program to keep workers in employment through the coming downturn, and we urge the Commonwealth government to implement such a policy quickly.

    Download full list of signatories below.


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    List of signatories

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    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs

    by Charlie Joyce

    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs As Australia’s federal election campaign has finally begun, opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to spend hundreds of billions in public money to build seven nuclear power plants across the country has been carefully scrutinized. The technological unfeasibility, staggering cost, and scant detail of the Coalition’s nuclear proposal have

  • Responding to the Economic Emergency

    Responding to the Economic Emergency

    by Jim Stanford in New Matilda

    Jim Stanford

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    Originally published in New Matilda on March 21, 2020

    The scale and scope of the economic downturn caused by COVID-19 will be unprecedented in our lifetimes. Mainstream economists have belatedly realised the pandemic will cause an economic downturn, but they are not yet appreciating the size of that downturn, nor the unconventional responses that will be required. Simply calling for government “stimulus” is sadly inadequate, given the complete shut-down of work and production that is occurring in many sectors of the economy. The task is no longer supporting markets with incremental “pump-priming.” What’s needed is a war-like effort, led by government, to mobilise every possible resource to protect Australians’ health and livelihoods. Money is not an object – and this epic effort should not be held back by normal acquiescence to private-sector priorities and decisions.

    That’s the core message of new analysis by Centre for Future Work Director Dr. Jim Stanford, published today by the Australian journal New Matilda.

    Stanford’s article outlines the immediate economic measures needed to both confront the health emergency and prevent households and firms from collapsing:

    • Immediate mobilization of resources to protect health: including more staff at health facilities, quick deployment of off-site and mobile testing capacities, home support for people quarantined or recovering, and quick expansion of equipment and facilities where possible.
    • Income protection for workers: including for casuals, self-employed, gig-workers, and many part-timers who don’t have effective access to sick pay. Incomes must be protected for all workers (regardless of employment status), through mandated special payments (as proposed by the ACTU).
    • Other direct income supplements: similar to the one-time payments distributed in 2009, as well as more targeted aid (like higher Newstart).
    • Debt relief and business assistance: emergency financing will be needed to keep firms viable in many industries (including airlines, other transportation, tourism, and hospitality). Other parts of society also need protection from creditors; foreclosures and evictions should be prohibited, and other personal and credit card debts deferred.

    But Stanford also discusses the longer-run challenge that will face the Australian economy: the pandemic is imposing a shock that is far too powerful and all-encompassing for private market players to autonomously recover from. The economy will need unprecedented and lasting investments by government to repair and expand public infrastructure and services, and directly put Australians back to work:

    “There is enormous need for urgent rebuilding required in our economy and our communities. Repairing and strengthening health care infrastructure comes first, but other priorities, too, are urgent: like sustainable transit, green energy, non-market housing, aged care and early child education. The case for mobilising resources under the leadership of governments and public institutions, and employing millions of Australians to do that work, is compelling. We can repair the damage of this crisis (and better prepare for the next one), deliver valuable services, and create millions of jobs. All we need is the willingness to imagine a different model of organizing and leading economic activity.”

    Please read the full article, We Need Wage Guarantees And Radical Restructure, Not More ‘Stimulus’, published by New Matilda.


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    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs

    by Charlie Joyce

    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs As Australia’s federal election campaign has finally begun, opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to spend hundreds of billions in public money to build seven nuclear power plants across the country has been carefully scrutinized. The technological unfeasibility, staggering cost, and scant detail of the Coalition’s nuclear proposal have

    Centre For Future Work to evolve into standalone entity

    The Centre for Future Work was established by the Australia Institute in 2016 to conduct and publish progressive economic research on work, employment, and labour markets. Supported by the Australian Union movement, the centre produced cutting edge research and led the national conversation on economic issues facing working people: including the future of jobs, wages

  • Job Opportunity: Research Economist

    Job Opportunity: Research Economist

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    The Centre for Future Work invites applications for an economist to join our research team in labour market research and policy analysis. The position may be at a junior or senior level, and the successful candidate may work from our offices in either Sydney or Canberra.

    The successful candidate will offer:

    • A graduate degree in economics or a closely related discipline.
    • Knowledge of and experience with a wide range of labour issues, preferably including: labour market statistics and trends; characteristics and determinants of employment; industrial relations and collective bargaining; wage determination and inequality; gender, racial, and demographic aspects of labour markets; the impact of technology on employment; macroeconomic policy and labour markets; and others.
    • Demonstrated ability to write to deadline for professional and popular audiences in a credible, succinct, and accessible manner.
    • Strong quantitative skills, including ability to access statistical data, analyse it (including familiarity with statistical tools), and report it in a variety of textual, tabular and graphical formats.
    • Confident communication skills, including ability to speak to public audiences, classrooms, and the media.
    • Ability to work collegially with other members of a research team.
    • Commitment to a progressive vision of work and fairness, including the goals of equality, participation, collective representation and trade unionism.

    Responsibilities of the position will include:

    • Research and completion of several project-length research papers, briefing notes, and shorter commentary articles per year on a range of topics related to labour markets and labour market policy.
    • Ongoing monitoring and analysis of labour market data and information.
    • Helping to maintain relevant websites and databases.
    • Public speaking, presentations, lectures and courses, media interviews, and related communication and educational activities.
    • Minimal office and administrative functions.

    Ability to undertake occasional out-of-town travel (including overnight travel) is essential, as is ability to successfully work in a self-managed and autonomous manner.

    The position will be offered on a one-year term-limited basis, with possibility for renewal. Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience.

    Applications are especially invited from women, indigenous persons, other racial and linguistic communities, people with disabilities, and other marginalised communities.

    Please forward applications (including contact information, qualifications, experience, two samples of written work, and names and contact details for two references) in confidence to cfwjob@tai.org.au. Please cite “Economist Job Application” in the subject field of your message; supporting documents should be attached in pdf format. Receipt of applications will be acknowledged by e-mail. Only candidates selected for an interview will then be contacted; no phone calls please.

    Applications must be received by 5:00 pm AEDT on Wednesday 9 October, and interviews will be conducted in Sydney on Wednesday 23 October 2019.

    The Centre for Future Work is an initiative of the Australia Institute, Australia’s leading progressive research institution. Thank you for your interest in the Centre for Future Work.


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    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs

    by Charlie Joyce

    Dutton’s nuclear push will cost renewable jobs As Australia’s federal election campaign has finally begun, opposition leader Peter Dutton’s proposal to spend hundreds of billions in public money to build seven nuclear power plants across the country has been carefully scrutinized. The technological unfeasibility, staggering cost, and scant detail of the Coalition’s nuclear proposal have

  • 124 Labour Policy Experts Call for Measures to Promote Stronger Wage Growth

    124 Labour Policy Experts Call for Measures to Promote Stronger Wage Growth

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    124 labour policy experts have today published an open letter calling for proactive measures to help accelerate the rate of wages growth in Australia’s economy. The legal experts, economists, and other policy analysts agreed that “stronger wages in the future would contribute to a stronger, more balanced and fairer Australian economy,” and they proposed several broad strategies to boost wages.

    The letter has generated substantial media coverage, including articles in the ABC, The Guardian, and The New Daily.

    A comprehensive story also appeared in Workplace Express, which we attached below with the journal’s permission. (To subscribe to Workplace Express for comprehensive coverage of labour policy issues, please visit their site.)

    Richard Denniss, Chief Economist at the Australia Institute, also tied the open letter into his powerful column on the causes of wage stagnation.

    The open letter was initiated and circulated by the 3 co-editors of a recent collection of research essays on the wages slowdown (The Wages Crisis in Australia: What it is and what to do about it, published by the University of Adelaide Press):

    • Prof. Andrew Stewart, John Bray Professor of Law, Adelaide Law School
    • Dr. Jim Stanford, Economist and Director, Centre for Future Work
    • Dr. Tess Hardy, Senior Lecturer and Co-Director, Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law, University of Melbourne

    “There is a growing and legitimate concern in Australia over the erosion of real living standards. Boosting wage growth is the best way to reinvigorate the promise of shared prosperity that is essential to a healthy and productive society,” said Dr. Stanford.

    “This is not a problem that is going to fix itself”, added Professor Stewart. “We need to see a policy response from governments at all levels – and an acceptance that lifting wage growth can help the economy, not harm it.

    Dr. Hardy said, “The problem of stagnant wages is a complex one. While there is no singular or straightforward solution, it is increasingly clear that combatting the current wages crisis will require concrete and decisive action.”

    Included among 124 co-signers of the letter are numerous distinguished policy experts, including:

    Prof. Roy Green, Emeritus Professor, Innovation Adviser, and former Dean of Business School, University of Technology Sydney: “In current conditions, wage increases can be a significant driver of growth and productivity through the incentive effect on capital investment, and the demand effect on capacity expansion. Keeping wages depressed is not only disadvantageous for workers but it is bad for business and the wider economy.”

    Prof. Sara Charlesworth, Distinguished Professor of Gender, Work and Regulation in the School of Management at RMIT University: “Wages fully reflecting the value of the work women undertake are vital to their well-being and fundamental to gender equality.”

    Prof. John Quiggin, ARC Australian Laureate Fellow, School of Economics, University of Queensland: “For decades, government policy has been designed to weaken unions and push wages down. It’s time to put that process into reverse.”


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