{"id":17816,"date":"2021-02-08T13:48:04","date_gmt":"2021-02-08T02:48:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/?p=17816"},"modified":"2021-02-08T15:44:00","modified_gmt":"2021-02-08T04:44:00","slug":"the-truth-about-much-casual-work-its-really-about-permanent-insecurity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au\/?p=17816","title":{"rendered":"The truth about much ‘casual’ work: it’s really about permanent insecurity."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

David Peetz<\/a> Griffith University<\/a>.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The federal government\u2019s industrial relations ‘reform’ bill offers a new definition of ‘casual’ employment which creates more problems than it solves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It effectively defines a casual job as anything described that way by the employer at the time a job commences, so long as the employer initially makes \u201cno firm advance commitment to continuing and indefinite work\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone defined as such loses any entitlement to leave they might otherwise have got through two<\/a> recent<\/a> Federal Court decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fair enough, you might think. Casual jobs are meant to be flexible. There can\u2019t be an ongoing commitment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s not what the data on \u201ccasual employment\u201d tell us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve drilled into previously unpublished data<\/a> from the Australian Bureau of Statistics to get a better sense of what \u201ccasual employment\u201d means for those employed as such.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, what I\u2019ve found suggests the \u201ccasual\u201d employment relationship is not about doing work for which employers need flexibility. It\u2019s not about workers doing things that need doing at varying times for short periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flexibility is really in employers\u2019 ability to hire and fire, thereby increasing their power. For many casual employees there\u2019s no real flexibility, only permanent insecurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The federal government\u2019s new bill will not solve this. It will reinforce it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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So much for consensus: Morrison government’s industrial relations bill is a business wish list<\/a><\/h5>\n\n\n\n
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Casual definitions<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Technically, the ABS does not routinely estimate the numbers of casual employees. For a few years (to 2013) it published data on workers who received a casual loading, and it occasionally asks people to self-identify whether they are casuals. But mostly its data on \u201cworkers without leave entitlements<\/a>\u201d (collected quarterly) is used as a proxy measure of casual employment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 24% of Australian employees were in this boat in 2019<\/a> \u2013 a high proportion compared with most other industrialised countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a>
CC BY-NC-ND<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Theory versus reality<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The ABS data I\u2019ve analysed includes statistics collected before 2012. But since the proportion of employees without leave entitlements has been relatively stable since the mid-1990s, the results remain relevant. They show:<\/p>\n\n\n\n