Submission 167 Australian Council of Trade Unions Workplace Relations Framework Public inquiry

Non-standard employment

While hours flexibility can be achieved by permanent employees choosing to work shorter or longer hours to accommodate the needs of their employers—particularly during economic crises—the longer term picture in Australia is that hours flexibility has also been achieved through casualisation and other forms of non-standard employment. The largest increases in the former were during the 1980s and 1990s⁵⁰, after which the overall growth plateaued. Important new developments included the increasing extension of casual employment to full-time employees rather than just part-timers, and the spread of casual jobs into industries which had previously had only low levels of casualisation.⁵¹

Non-standard employment can be viewed as a broad category, including casual employees, those on fixed term contracts and labour hire employees.⁵² There are two distinctive features to these various modes of employment. First, they provide hours flexibility for employers, whether that be on a daily, weekly or monthly basis, since the employer is able to buy ‘small chunks’ of labour inputs in ways which suit their business operations, which may be seasonal, or fluctuate during the day, week or month. Secondly, the employer opts out of taking full responsibility for the labour employed in this way. They gain ‘access to labour without obligation’ in the words of George Gonos.⁵³

Changes in the shares held by various forms of non-standard employment over the 2000s (i.e. after the initial growth in those forms was observed) are shown in Table which presents the percentage of employees in various employment categories in 2013 compared with percentage in 2001.

By 2013 full-time permanent employment was the norm for about two-thirds of men but only two-fifths of women. In both cases, the 2013 figures represented a slight decline over the period. The most notable increases had taken place in part-time permanent shares for both men and women. Casual employment shares saw a slight decline among both sexes. Part-time casual and fixed-term employment differed by sex: for men these retained their share, while for women the part-time casual share had fallen and the fixed term share had risen. Finally, among both men and women the labour hire share had fallen.

Table : Employees by employment category, Australia 2001 & 2013 (%)

		Male					Female			Persons
Category	2001		2013	2001				2013	2001		2013
Full-time permanent	66.8		65.6	42.5				41.5	55.3		53.9
Part-time permanent	3.3		5.1	17.8				23.0	10.2		13.8
Full-time casual	6.1		6.3	3.6				3.5	4.9		4.9
Part-time casual	11.7		11.7	24.1				20.0	17.6		15.7
Fixed term	8.2		8.2	8.4				10.0	8.3		9.1
Labour hire	4.0		3.1	3.5				2.0	3.8		2.6

Shares held by each category of employee. Source: HILDA Release 13.

These changes are also shown as rates of growth across the period in Figure and Figure and these data suggest that the business cycle, and particularly the GFC, played an important role in how employers made use of these different forms of employment. Since these figures show rates of growth based on absolute levels, they tell a different story to that shown by the employment shares. This is because changes from a small base (as with part-time permanent employment) appear more important than their numbers warrant. Hence it is important to keep Table in mind in assessing these growth rates. Nevertheless, by examining rates of growth over the full period from 2001 to 2013 insights are gained into the links between the hours adjustment analysis suggested earlier and the link to employers’ pursuit of flexibility.
Figure suggests that from 2008 onwards growth in full-time permanent employment was flat (as we would expect from the earlier discussion). On the other hand, growth in part-time permanent employment was very strong throughout the period, reflecting the use of shorter hours as discussed earlier. However, worth noting are the changes in part-time casual employment, which grew after the recovery from the GFC, but flattened after 2011. By contrast, full-time casual employment grew more strongly from 2007 onwards and labour hire declined over the period. Finally, fixed term employment mirrored permanent part-time employment, showing strong growth over the GFC, though declining in its wake. The greater variations in labour hire and fixed term employment partly reflects sampling variability, but it also reflects some sensitivity to the business cycle. Employers were adjusting labour demand on both an hourly basis and a ‘commitment’ basis. Faced with great uncertainty at the time of the GFC, and in its aftermath, employers behaved in a risk-averse fashion. One of the key consequences was stalled full-time permanent employment growth and an increased reliance on various forms of non-standard employment.

Figure : Growth rates in employee numbers, by employee category, Australia 2001 to 2011

Indexed to 2001. FT = full-time; PT = part-time; Perm = permanent; Cas = casual; Fixed = fixed term employee. Source: HILDA Release 13.

The gender dimension of this story was particularly illuminating (Figure ). The relative growth in permanent part-time employment among men was striking, particularly after the GFC, as was the use of fixed term employment in the lead-up to the GFC. Labour hire among men had not diminished over the period—despite some peaks and troughs—while the greatest growth in full-time casual employment was in the aftermath of the GFC. Part-time casual employment, on the other hand, grew strongly from 2009 onward but began to fall after 2011.

By way of contrast, among women permanent part-time rose steadily throughout the period, but less steeply than among the men. The same was true for fixed term employment (though with some volatility). The fact that both full-time permanent and part-time casual employment followed similar trajectories after 2007 is informative. The latter is a very stable employment destination for women—particularly in retail and hospitality—and has given rise to the oxymoron, the ‘permanent casual’.⁵⁴ That is, for many women in part-time casual jobs there is an ongoing expectation of employment and this situation reflects a long history of this form of part-time work being common in those industries. By contrast, full-time casual jobs were less common and their growth after 2008 resembled the situation for men. Finally, the secular decline in labour hire seen in Figure above was largely driven by women’s situation, and may well reflect the decline of clerical agency work as further office automation and the use of the internet grew steadily over the 2000s. It is important to keep the industry aspect of these in mind, since labour hire among men is more common in construction, a quite cyclical industry.

Figure : Growth rates in employees numbers, by employee category and sex, Australia 2001 to 2011

Indexed to 2001. FT = full-time; PT = part-time; Perm = permanent; Cas = casual; Fixed = fixed term employee. Source: HILDA Release 13.

Figure : Average weekly hours, by hours, employee category and sex, Australia 2001 to 2011

Averages use trimmed means (5%). FT = full-time; PT = part-time; Perm = permanent; Cas = casual; Fixed = fixed term employee.

Source: HILDA Release 13.

The final part of this story involves looking at the variation in hours worked over this period. Figure shows that female hours of employment among full-time permanents, part-time permanents and part-time casuals were reasonably stable, compared with their male counterparts. Among the later, not only was there a decline in hours for full-time permanents over the period, but there was more volatility for men working as part-time permanents and part-time casuals. The most volatile hours, however, were experienced by labour hire workers and by full-time casuals, though part of this volatility reflects sampling variability (given the smaller sample size for these categories). Nevertheless, it is also clear that these categories of worker come closest to the ‘disposable worker’ model which is at the heart of the ‘just-in-time’ workforce which has cemented itself so firmly with the Australian labour market over the last twenty five years.

It is clear from these data that employers have gained a very flexible workforce over the last twenty five years. The industrial relations changes of the early 1990s, particularly the movement to enterprise bargaining, played a crucial role in this evolution. In an analysis of acirrt’s ADAM database of enterprise agreements, Watson and his colleagues showed that over the period from 1992 to 2002 an average of 82 per cent of registered enterprise agreements dealt with the issue of working hours. In the early 1990s this percentage was in the high 90s and by 2002 it still featured in over 80 per cent of agreements. By way of contrast, little more than half of agreements dealt with training issues and just over 40 per cent deal with occupational health and safety.⁵⁵