Employment Precariousness in Australia: Analysis and Relevance

This report discusses employment precariousness in Australia, analyzing key issues and explaining its relevance in the next 20 years. It explores factors such as part-time and casual employment, underpayment of wages, workplace bullying, and the impact on earnings and work time insecurity.

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29 Mar 2019
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The present report discusses employment precariousness in Australia, which is based on the
analysis presented by Campbell and Burgess (2018). The discussion will also be extended with
explanation, why this research will still be relevant in next 20 years.
Key issues in employment precariousness
The increased opportunity for part-time and casual employment in Australia is triggered by the
factor that organizations are looking for employees with specific for short-term. This leads to
employment insecure condition among the employees (Campbell and Burgess 2018). Another
factor which is linked to inappropriate organizational policies is also associated with the
employment precariousness condition. These policies are responsible for underpayment of
wages, unregulated working condition, lack of adequate resources coma and withholding the
employment benefits. In addition to this, abused and workplace bullying along with unpaid
working hours are also triggering factors. As a result of which, employees often become
dissatisfied and becomes migrant from one industry to another.
Other reasons are associated with insecurity with respect to earnings and working time. For
example, significantly variable pay within the organization, unregulated be accompanied by
irregular work, low rates and improper classification, and enforcement of legal rates are the
factors responsible for causing earning insecurity (Venn, Carey, Strazdins and Burgess 2016).
Similarly, the work time insecurity is related to factors such as insufficient working hours,
variable schedules, and lack of control on scheduling by employees. According to McVicar,
Wooden, Laß and Fok, (2018), the insecurity in terms of earnings and work time is responsible
for generating zero-hour contract job opportunities. On one hand, employers are benefited with
such opportunity as they do not need to invest in employee benefits and other related terms.
Likewise, employees are engaged in zero hour contract jobs because they find it flexible in
terms of scheduling and to arrange temporary income opportunities.
Relevance of topic after 20 years
In the next 20 years, the research by Campbell and Burgess (2017) will be valid because of the
precariousness in working condition have expanded to various industries as well as developed
and developing nations due to globalization. The intention of organizational leaders for reducing
the overhead expenses by reducing the employment benefit schemes, and fulfilling the specific
task requirement on the basis of zero-hours or contract employees. As a result of this, they are
able to reduce the company expenses and manage the work-scheduling, however, for the long
run, it devoid of retaining efficient employees. On the other hand, from the employment
perspective, these opportunities are considered as “good” only for the temporary purpose, and it
affects the population in terms of income stress.
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In the competitive era, the persistence of inadequate and non-systemic work opportunity will be
constant. Particularly, in Australia, this is responsible for generating inequality in terms of the
pay scale, employment opportunity, and job security. This infers the requirement to implement
appropriate standards for ensuring independent income, employee welfare, and meeting
community economic expectation (Roos and Shroff 2017). Until there will be specific regulation
and employment policies for the industrial employment opportunity, the issue for managing
diverse workforce within an organization will be facing precariousness.
References:
Campbell, I. and Burgess, J., 2018. Patchy progress? Two decades of research on
precariousness and precarious work in Australia. Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and
economic relations of work, 28(1), pp.48-67.
McVicar, D., Wooden, M., Laß, I. and Fok, Y.K., 2018. Contingent employment and labour
market pathways: bridge or trap?. European Sociological Review, 35(1), pp.98-115.
Roos, G. and Shroff, Z., 2017. What will happen to the jobs? Technology-enabled productivity
improvement–good for some, bad for others. Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and
economic relations of work, 27(3), pp.165-192.
Venn, D., Carey, G., Strazdins, L. and Burgess, J., 2016. What explains trends in Australian
working-time arrangements in the 2000s?. Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and
economic relations of work, 26(2), pp.138-155.
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