Effects of Casual Employment on Employees and the Economy

Casual employment has adverse negative effects on employees and the economy at large. Therefore, the employment sector should be well regulated to ensure that the rights of employees are upheld and that employers do not take advantage of the workforce to gain cheap labor.

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Enterprise Industrial Relations
Name
Institution Affiliation
Date

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Enterprise Industrial Relations
Introduction
Social legitimacy refers to the idea that a regime that lacks societal acceptance is bound
to disintegrate (Boxall and Purcell 2016). In terms of employment, the societal acceptance level
of most employers is low. That is because they fail to offer a work environment that increases the
employees’ ability, provide the opportunities that offer a contribution to the economy and
provide motivation to employees by adopting casual employment. The popularity of casual
employment leads to a low level of social acceptance because of its exploitative nature. It also
has low flexibility. Flexibility refers to the ability to transform or change easily. This type of
employment concentrates on getting the most out of the employees within a short time and
leaving them without any investments in their skills and abilities. Casual employment has the
nature that it does not care about the development of the employees as individuals. In its nature,
it has barely invested in the development of the workforce. That is detrimental to the employees
and retrogressive to the development of an economy. More reasons for that have been discussed
below.
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A recent decision by the Fair Work commission to provide casual employees including the ones
in the retail and hospitality sector, will have the right for requesting full time or part time
employment. That is under a federal coalition shake up initiative meant to neutralize the attacks
coming from labor and unions. That move was not received well by the Australian trade unions.
Industrial Relations Minister Kelly O’Dwyer weighed on the move but the Australian Council of
Trade Unions weighed on intervention measures with the secretary of the Union accusing the

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minister for defending companies to rort the system. The union has been carrying campaigns that
target increased casualisation of work.
It is important to understand that the rise of casualization in Australia is coincident with the
Accord signing between Labor governments and unions in the year 1983. That saw the
agreement of unions to take industrial actions to defend the rights of workers for a promised
social safety net.
However, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has claimed that there is an
increasing casualisation. The Autralian Industry Group however, refutes the claim and purport
that there has not been increased casualisation rate in Autralia.
Through that agreement, many employers have been taking advantage to exploit workers through
the means explained below. The recent push by trade unions to defend the rights of workers on
the basis of social acceptance have been a positive initiative because of defending the rights of
workers in the following ways;
Casual employment hurts the employee and shows the greed of the employer by striving
to exploit human labor with minimum compensation. Many employers like using this kind of
employment because they will not have committed themselves to a lot of employment benefits
(Barry and You, 2018). Therefore, they use the employees as much as they want and leave them
to their devices. In as much as this is one technique for making savings and cutting costs, it
normally leads to unfairness to the employee. The reasons for that are discussed below;
One of the reasons casual employment is burdensome to the employee is that it has no
facility for the provision of access to sick leave. Employees have the right to stop his/her work
and leave the area of work without having to undergo disciplinary actions if he/she has any

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health concerns. In that case, it will be unfair for the employer to use casual employment as a
short cut to avoid being obligated to render the health right to the employee (Eslake, 2018).
Another reason why casual employment is unfair is that there is no guarantee for the
hours that will be worked. That opens up a great opportunity for the exploitation of the employee
by the employer because the working hours are not regulated. Employees have to right to rest
hours and optimal and healthy working hours. Most employees have a huge need for money and
hence will not regulate their working hour’s responsibility. That opens the chances of
overworking their bodies posing a huge risk to their health. In the process, the employer only
cares about his/her work output and less on the employees’ welfare. That opens the way for the
development of a really bad reputation for the employer.
It, therefore, affects the social legitimacy of the employer, in a negative way. It also
undermines the right of employees for enjoying rest days, according to the law, which requires
that employees be given at least one day per week as the rest day. Employees also have the right
to a maximum of eight hours per day of normal working hours and a maximum of 104 hours per
month of overtime. Through the overreliance of casual employment, employers are increasingly
dodging the rights of employees as far as working hours is concerned.
Casual employment is also unfavorable because it bears no requirement for a roaster or
roster changes. Therefore, it becomes quite difficult to make the necessary plans for the time of
personal reasons. Having a roaster of work helps employees to plan well for their personal
schedules. However, causal employment does not allow employees to do that because they do
not know the schedule of the employer prior. In that case, the employee is obligated to stick to
the plans of the employer and have his/her own life sabotaged. That creates a sought of slavery
working environment for the employees.

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Also, casual employment creates no guarantee for regular income. In that case, the
employee lacks the ability to become freedom in his/her financial life. Most people rely on
casual employment for their daily livelihoods. When the employer has no work to offer, the
employee will remain to be poor with a lack of incentives to develop his/her life. Therefore, in as
much as casual employment is better than unemployment, it also leads to unfair working
conditions that make the employee unsettled (Gahan, Pekarek and Nicholson, 2018). It also leads
to a retrogressive working culture. In an economy that only relies on casual employment, it
becomes difficult for the residents or citizens to boost the economy. That is because; the workers
in that economy will not give back to the economy because they will be living from hand to
mouth, without the incentive to invest.
Casual employment also treats employees with unfair dismissal protection. In that case,
for a casual worker to access the unfair dismissal claim, the worker must have been
underemployment beyond six months, have worked systematic and regular hours and bear a
reasonable expectation of continuous employment. The employers’ move to want to reduce the
duration of casual employment to less than six months is a suspicious undertaking. That is
because; an employee working below six months would not have the leeway for unfair dismissal
claim (Productivity Commission, 2015). The unfair dismissal of employees is also another way
of unfair exploitation of the employees by employers. When employees feel insecure with the
unfair dismissal by the employers, they tend to lose focus on the job, working in fear of
dismissal. They will also have no incentive to work as to be of help to the company or business
in the long run. Unfair dismissal also opens up chances of mistreatment of employees using the
threat and blackmail of dismissal from work.

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A casual employee also has limited access to career development, training, and
workplace information. That creates a feeling among the employees that their input in the
organization is of little value. Employees would then fail to deliver their maximum output
quality because of incapacitation (Cassidy and Parsons 2017). Without the right information and
resources investment on the employees, it suggests a negative intention of the employers to use
the employees as tools of little value that would be disposed of shortly after use. That kind of
mentality affects the employees in their confidence and self-esteem even as individuals. At the
end of the day, the company or the employer will be the biggest loser given that the employee
will offer haphazard kind of work. The output of the employees’ work will be of low quality,
affecting organizational performance in a really big way (Whiteside 2017). Employees will also
lack the privilege of developing their personal careers given that they have no access to career
development opportunities and training. That is not only detrimental to the individual employees
but also to the overall economy of a country or region. A nation with a half-baked workforce will
definitely struggle to grow its economy (Peetz, 2018). Encouraging the growth of casual
employment in an economy is therefore retrogressive.
Another unfair aspect of casual employment is that there is no access to career or
personal leave for the employees. Leaves give employees necessary breaks from the workplace,
allowing them to unwind from the work environment and have their personal time with family
and relatives. In the cause of such a break, employees have the capacity to grow other aspects of
their lives such as their social lives (Jackson, 2015). Casual employment robs employees of that
privilege because they never provide them with the break they deserve. That is a very selfish
nature of companies taking advantage of casual employment to avoid the responsibilities they
have on their employees.

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Another quite inhuman aspect of casual employment is that it does not provide the notice
for the termination of the contract or employment. That is an indication of the high level of
inhuman nature of employment. It also indicates that the employer holds the employee to a very
low value (Borland, 2018). Despite the employees being of great value to employers, they are not
esteemed in any way. That indicates a crude employer and employee relationship rendering
casual employment undesirable and creating a need for regulating it.
Conclusion
Casual employment has adverse negative effects on employees and the economy at large.
Therefore, the employment sector should be well regulated to ensure that the rights of employees
are upheld and that employers do not take advantage of the workforce to gain cheap labor.
Protecting the rights of employees is equivalent to protecting the economy of the nation as a
whole. When the workforce of a nation receives value for their work, it increases empowerment
to strive for more. In the process, employees will be able to make investments that will make
them richer and progressive. Therefore, wealth will be well distributed and people will pay more
in taxes remitting to the nation enough money for development. With that kind of understanding,
there is a need to regulate the use of casual employment.

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References
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Industrial Relations,vol. 60, no. 3, pp. 358 - 377
Borland, J. 2018, ’Five questions (and answers) about casual employment’, The Conversation,
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Peetz, D. (2018), ’Self-employment and casual work aren’t increasing but so many jobs are
insecure - what’s going on?’, The Conversation, 3 August, https://theconversation.com/self-
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