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Tag: Jim Stanford

  • International COVID-19 Income Supports: An Update

    COVID-19

    International COVID-19 Income Supports: An Update

    by Alison Pennington and Jim Stanford

    Authors

    Alison Pennington

    Senior Economist

    Jim Stanford

    The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted global labour markets, and exposed long-standing gaps in social protection systems. Governments around the industrialised world injected hundreds of billions of dollars into a range of unprecedented crisis measures: to support individuals who lost work, to subsidise employers to retain workers despite the fall-off in business, and to facilitate workers to stay away from work when required for health reasons. More recently, as the pandemic progressed and vaccination became widespread, governments have begun considering how to transition toward a post-COVID policy stance. 

    In several countries, governments with stronger commitments to public health and safety, and a more inclusive and equitable recovery from COVID-19, have been more cautious and incremental in scaling back government interventions. Some have also made permanent improvements to income security and other policies whose shortcomings became more apparent during the pandemic. In Australia, however, the phase-out of COVID-19 wage subsidies and income supports was accelerated and premature – perhaps more so than any other major industrial country. A new comparison of COVID support policies across numerous industrial countries confirms the economic and public health risks of the rapid elimination of Australia’s COVID programs.

    This briefing paper, prepared by Alison Pennington and Jim Stanford, catalogues a selection of international income support measures introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and reports on recent changes in those programs as vaccinations roll out and economies have re-opened. This catalogue allows us to make a comparative assessment of the level and coverage of Australia’s provisions, in relation to other jurisdictions.

    After summarising the status of Australia’s Commonwealth-administered COVID-era payments, other countries are surveyed, organised into two groups: those with income support programs still in place, and those whose programs had been eliminated at time of writing. A conclusion summarises the comparison, which confirms that Australia has been an outlier among industrial countries in the speed with which emergency COVID-19 measures were eliminated.



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  • Ideas Into Motion

    Unions & Collective Bargaining

    Ideas Into Motion

    Progressive Economics and Social Change Movements
    by Jim Stanford

    Author

    Jim Stanford

    Our research at the Centre for Future Work is motivated by a deep commitment to improving the jobs, working conditions, and living standards of working people in Australia and around the world. We combine our knowledge of economics, our quantitative and qualitative research, and our connections with trade unionists and social movements to develop arguments and evidence that supports campaigns for decent work, stronger communities, and sustainability.

    Our Director, Dr. Jim Stanford, was recently asked to contribute his ideas on the links between progressive economics and real-world social change movements for a forthcoming collection: The Handbook of Alternative Theories of Political Economy, edited by Frank Stilwell, Tim Thornton, and David Primrose, forthcoming in 2022 from Edward Elgar Press in the UK.

    In the essay, Jim reflects on his own experiences trying to integrate progressive economic theorising and research with on-the-ground campaigns for economic, social, and environmental justice. While there is a natural synergy between progressive economics and social change organising, there are also challenges and barriers to more effective partnership between these two worlds. The essay proposes several ‘best practices’ that both researchers and activists can consider as they try to forge stronger cooperation.



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  • What Next for Casual Work? Professor Andrew Stewart webinar recording

    What Next for Casual Work? Professor Andrew Stewart webinar recording

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    Casual employment has dominated Australia’s labour market recovery from COVID-19. And the right of employers to hire staff on a casual basis in almost any role they choose – including jobs that on their face appear have permanent characteristics – seems to have been cemented by recent amendments to the Fair Work Act, and by the High Court’s recent ruling in the WorkPac v. Rossato case.

    What do these new developments mean for the further spread of casual and precarious work? What are the other implications of the High Court ruling for future employer strategies? And what options remain for limiting the spread of casual and insecure work? To examine these matters and their implications, we were recently joined by renowned labour law expert Professor Andrew Stewart from the University of Adelaide.

    Andrew’s highly informative presentation can be viewed below:


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    “Permanent Casuals,” and Other Oxymorons

    by Jim Stanford

    Recent legal decisions are starting to challenge the right of employers to deploy workers in “casual” positions on an essentially permanent basis. For example, the Federal Court recently ruled that a labour-hire mine driver who worked regular shifts for years was still entitled to annual leave, even though he was supposedly hired as a “casual.” This decision has alarmed business lobbyists who reject any limit on their ability to deploy casual labour, while avoiding traditional entitlements (like sick pay, annual leave, severance rights, and more). For them, a “casual worker” is anyone who they deem to be casual; but that open door obviously violates the intent of Australia’s rules regarding casual loading.

  • The Future of Work in Journalism

    Future of Work, Industry & Sector Policies, Media

    The Future of Work in Journalism

    by Jim Stanford

    Author

    Jim Stanford

    Media release



    Active Policy Measures Needed to Stop Decline of Journalism

    Information industries have lost some 60,000 jobs in Australia in the last 15 years, almost half during the COVID-19 pandemic. And a new research report highlights the need for active policy supports to stabilise the media industry, and protect the public good function of quality journalism.

    The new report, The Future of Work in Journalism, was written by Dr. Jim Stanford with the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute. It catalogues the employment and economic damage wrought in media and information industries by the combination of technological change, new business models, and globalisation.

    “It is ironic that we supposedly live in an ‘information economy,’ but Australia’s capacity to contribute fully and successfully to that information era is crumbling due to financial losses and massive job destruction,” Stanford said.

    Major findings of the report include:

    • The broader information, media, and telecommunications industry lost over 30,000 jobs between 2007 (its peak employment) and 2019. Publishing was the worst-affected sub-sector, losing over half of its jobs as newspapers and other print media grappled with new technologies and major losses.
    • New jobs in digital activities (such as internet publishing) are not offsetting the loss of work in conventional media.
    • Jobs remaining in the media industry have become more insecure: with almost one-third part-time, and a growing share casual and contractor positions.
    • Real wages are falling in the media industry, despite a dramatic increase in labour productivity. Real value-added per employee in media industries has been growing at 4% per year since 2012, but real labour compensation has been falling.

    “Workers in these industries are producing more with less, despite the turmoil of technological change, job losses, and restructuring,” Stanford said. “But that extraordinary effort is not translating into more secure or better paid jobs – quite the contrary.”

    The report argues that quality journalism is a ‘public good’ in a modern democracy, because of its importance in distributing reliable information (including on emergencies, like the pandemic) to citizens. The failure of private markets to sustainably supply this service (due to corporate concentration, unrestrained ‘free riding’ on content produced by other, and globalisation) necessitates public policy action to stabilise the industry and support continued journalism.

    The report makes several suggestions for policy measures to sustain journalism despite those market failures, including publicly-funded journalism, stronger property rights for content-creators, tax reforms, stronger anti-trust regulations (on major digital monopolies like Google and Facebook), and stronger support for training and vocational education in the sector.

    The report was commissioned by the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA), the union representing journalists and other media workers. Marcus Strom, the MEAA’s Media Federal President, said: “The report makes it clear that years of disruption, undermining and neglect have left Australian journalism and journalists in a fragile state.”

    Strom urged the Commonwealth government to step up its support for domestic journalism. ““Public interest journalism is a public good. It informs and entertains Australians, ensures the public’s right to know and holds the powerful to account. If we want that to continue, then there is no time to waste to address the many challenges facing those working in journalism and the entire media industry.”



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  • Shock Troops of the Pandemic

    COVID-19, Insecure & Precarious Work

    Shock Troops of the Pandemic

    Casual and Insecure Work in COVID and Beyond
    by Jim Stanford

    Author

    Jim Stanford

    Media release



    Insecure Workers Have Been the ‘Shock Troops’ of the COVID-19 Pandemic: New Report

    New research confirms that workers in casual and insecure jobs have borne the lion’s share of job losses during the COVID-19 pandemic – both the first lockdowns in 2020, and the more recent second wave of closures.

    Since May, workers in casual and part-time jobs have suffered over 70% of job losses from renewed lockdowns and workplace closures. Casual workers have been 8 times more likely to lose work than permanent staff. And part-timers have been 4.5 times more likely to lose work than full-timers.

    “Workers in insecure jobs have been the shock troops of the pandemic,” said Jim Stanford, Economist with the Centre for Future Work and author of the report. “They suffered by far the deepest casualties during the first round of layoffs. Then they were sent back into battle, as the economy temporarily recovered. But now their livelihoods are being shot down again, in mass numbers.”



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  • Submission to the Senate Economics References Committee Inquiry on the Australian Manufacturing Industry

    Industry & Sector Policies

    Submission to the Senate Economics References Committee Inquiry on the Australian Manufacturing Industry

    by Jim Stanford and Dan Nahum

    Authors

    Jim Stanford

    Dan Nahum

    Economist

    The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic disruptions, both within Australia and globally, have highlighted the strategic importance of a vibrant manufacturing sector to national economic performance and resilience. The Economic References Committee of the Senate of Australia recently conducted an inquiry into the future of Australia’s manufacturing industry, and the policy measures that are essential to ensuring its presence and success.

    The Centre for Future Work made a submission to the inquiry, drawing on our previous research into the spilllover benefits of healthy manufacturing, Australia’s structurally unbalanced engagement in global manufactures trade, and the important role Australia’s renewable energy endowments could play in leveraging future manufacturing expansion.



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  • An Avoidable Catastrophe

    COVID-19, Education & Training

    An Avoidable Catastrophe

    Pandemic Job Losses in Higher Education and Their Consequences
    by Eliza Littleton and Jim Stanford

    Authors

    Eliza Littleton

    Senior Economist

    Jim Stanford

    Australia’s universities were uniquely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and recession — including the closure of borders to most international students, the implementation of new COVID-safe instruction practices, and effective exclusion from  Commonwealth support programs like JobKeeper.

    Now, 18 months after the borders were first closed, things are getting worse for universities, not better. New research from the Centre for Future Work confirms that tertiary education has been hit by bigger job losses this year than any other non-agricultural sector in the economy.

    The new report, An Avoidable Catastrophe: Pandemic Job Losses in Higher Education and their Consequences, was prepared by Eliza Littleton and Jim Stanford. It shows that total employment in tertiary education in the first half of 2021 fell by 40,000 positions compared to year-earlier levels. Most of the job losses were permanent, full-time positions — and all of them were at public institutions.

    During the first months of the pandemic, casual staff were the first university employees to lose their jobs as universities grappled with the sudden loss of international student fees and other impacts of the pandemic. This year, however, the job losses are both much larger, and targeted at permanent full-time staff. This indicates that universities are undertaking a more permanent downsizing and casualisation of their workforce, on expectation that border closures are likely to persist — and the Commonwealth government will continue to refuse targeted assistance necessary to preserve the universities’ instruction and research capacities.

    The report urges the Commonwealth government to provide special temporary assistance to universities until borders can reopen and revenues return to normal. Targeted support of $3.75 billion would allow the universities to replace and preserve the jobs cut so far this year. Preserving the functions of Australian universities is especially vital at a moment when the economy is undergoing lasting structural changes as a consequence of the pandemic, and hence more students will need higher education opportunities to support the resulting employment transitions. Moreover, the pandemic also reinforced that the need for top-quality research (including in health sciences) is more urgent than ever.



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  • Family & Domestic Violence Leave Review (AM2021/55)

    Gender at Work

    Family & Domestic Violence Leave Review (AM2021/55)

    Expert Report of Dr. James Stanford
    by Jim Stanford

    Author

    Jim Stanford

    As one of its first legislative acts, the new Commonwealth government is proposing to provide 10 days of paid leave for victims of family and domestic violence, as a right enshrined in Australia’s National Employment Standards. This will provide victims of FDV with important economic security as they work to address or escape their situations. Access to such leave has been shown to be effective in reducing the subsequent incidence of violence, and assisting victims and their families in rebuilding their lives.

    The legislation comes on the heels of an initial decision by the Fair Work Commission to enshrine 10 days paid FDV leave as a provision in Modern Awards.

    Our Director, Dr Jim Stanford, appeared as an expert witness last year before the FWC inquiry on this matter. He presented testimony estimating the ultimate impact of 10 days paid FDV leave on total labour costs in the Australian economy. He found that the final impact of this provision on total labour costs was almost too small to be measured (equivalent to an increase in labour costs of one-sixtieth of one percent — not enough to be visible in aggregate economic data). These costs are easily outweighed by the economic benefits of reducing the incidence of FDV.

    Dr Stanford’s full expert report is available below (as originally published by the FWC as part of its Family and domestic violence leave review 2021).



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  • Funding High-Quality Aged Care Services: A Summary

    Public Sector, Procurement & Privatisation

    Funding High-Quality Aged Care Services: A Summary

    by David Richardson and Jim Stanford

    Authors

    David Richardson

    Senior Research Fellow

    Jim Stanford

    The Centre for Future Work has prepared a 4-page summary of our recent detailed report on funding needed improvements in aged care services in Australia, in the wake of recommendations from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.

    The summary is based on a full 80-page research report, Funding Quality Aged Care Services, published in May and written by David Richardson and Jim Stanford.

    The summary report restates the key recommendations from the Royal Commission (including its emphasis on improving working conditions and job stability for aged care workers), highlights the ample fiscal capacity for the Commonwealth government to move ahead with implementing those recommendations, and then considers five specific revenue tools which could generate sufficient resources to pay for needed reforms. The most obvious (and perhaps fairest) would be for the Commonwealth government to cancel the planned ‘Stage 3’ elimination of the 37% personal income tax bracket: a move (already legislated) which would reduce revenues by at least $16 billion per year, but would deliver the vast majority of its ‘savings’ to the richest fifth of society. Surely, committing to the safe and respectful care of older Australians is a more important priority than further supplementing the take-home incomes of very well-off households.



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  • Industrial Policy-Making After COVID-19: Manufacturing, Innovation and Sustainability

    COVID-19, Industry & Sector Policies

    Industrial Policy-Making After COVID-19: Manufacturing, Innovation and Sustainability

    by Mark Dean, Al Rainnie, Jim Stanford and Dan Nahum

    Authors

    Mark Dean

    Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow

    Al Rainnie

    Jim Stanford

    Dan Nahum

    Economist

    As Treasurer during the 1980s, Paul Keating lamented that Australian governments had for decades been allowing the country’s sophisticated industrial base to fall apart as unsophisticated raw materials came to dominate the nation’s exports and as a result, its economy slipped into developing-world status. Keating’s famous warning of Australia’s looming ‘banana republic’ status spurred the Hawke and subsequent Keating Labor governments into action on economic restructuring, which included considering a range of industry policy intervention options to put Australia on a track to advanced, industrial status, as had been the aim of post-war nation-building that helped to institute an advanced manufacturing industrial base in Australia.

    But since the 1990s, the ‘default’ economic and industry policy setting of government has ultimately been to favour resource extraction as our national strength. Even despite the growing threat of climate change and global economic crises that make a shift to ‘green’ industrial transformation a pathway pursued by many other nations, current Coalition government policy continues to reflect deliberate, calculated emphasis on the extraction and export of raw materials. Australia risks cementing its developing-world economic status if we do not consider important industry policy challenges.

    The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to opportunities for Australia to not only rebuild, but reconstruct our economy in a way that capitalises on our national manufacturing potential and their ability to contribute to a sustainable recovery from the economic and social crisis that has culminated in lockdowns and recession. The future development of Australia’s manufacturing industry must focus on the opportunities presented by renewable energy to drive innovation, industrial transformation and a green future shaped by a skilled manufacturing workforce.

    Researchers from the Centre for Future Work, Mark Dean, Al Rainnie (Centre for Future Work Associate), Jim Stanford and Dan Nahum, have co-authored a new scholarly paper which will be published in the academic journal, the Economic and Labour Relations Review and is currently available as an online-first publication at their website.

    The article analyses Australia’s opportunities to revitalise its strategically important manufacturing secor in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, considering Australia’s industry policy options with reference to both advances in the theory of industrial policy and recent policy proposals in the Australian context.

    To examine the prospects for the renewal of Australian manufacturing in a post-pandemic economy, the article draws on recent work from The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work – specifically, Dan Nahum’s research into manufacturing and sustainability in Powering Onwards and Jim Stanford’s research on post-COVID-19 manufacturing renewal and Australia’s record on robotics adoption, in synthesis with analyses from published and forthcoming research from Al Rainnie and Mark Dean relating to critical evaluations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its implications for the Australian economy.

    The aim of the article is to contribute to and further develop the debate about the future of government intervention in manufacturing and industry policy in Australia. Crucially, the argument links the future development of Australian manufacturing with a focus on renewable energy. The purpose of this article has been to interpret the decline of manufacturing in Australia over the last generation and to identify the core principles and policy levers that would facilitate a revitalisation of our domestic manufacturing capabilities. The paper considers the history of half-hearted attempts by Australian governments and industry to spark a recovery: these attempts have largely lacked any critical consideration of the structural factors that inhibit a full-scale transformation of Australian industry. Such a transformation would in fact require consistent and systematic policy settings.

    The Coalition government’s evolving policy framework – focused on tax cuts for high-income households and companies, subsidies for further fossil fuel use, and further interventions to weaken industrial relations practices – reflects its attempt to use the pandemic as an opportunity to reinforce its previous commitment to a business-dominated economic strategy. But Australia can, and must, do better than this. The article analyses the possibilities and the challenges of developing a new industrial policy that is informed by modern understandings of technology, sustainability and social cohesion.

    A modern, sustainable industry policy is not a catch-all solution to addressing climate change, economic crisis and pandemic recovery – but it does hold great potential to help redirect Australia’s lurch further towards the banana republic status first identified nearly forty years ago.

    You can access a pre-publication version of this article below and those with access can read the article publication on the Economic and Labour Relations Review website.



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