The Workforce
Complete the following using the information on pages 102 to 107 of the textbook
Economics, Civics and Citizenship
Types of Employment
Employee: ...................................................................................................................
…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Employer: …………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Self- employed: ………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Full-time employment: ……………………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Part-time employment: ………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Casual employment: …………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Unemployment: ……………………………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Underemployment: …………………………………………………………………………...
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Blue-collared worker: ………………………………………………………………………...
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
White-collared worker: ……………………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
The Labour Force
Labour force (workforce): ……………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Labour force participation: …………………………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Not in the labour force (but not unemployed) ……………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Industry sectors – the type of work available
Primary sector: ……………………………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Secondary or Manufacturing sector: ……………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Tertiary or basic services sector ……………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Quaternary or information based services ………………………………………………..
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Quinary or household or personal services: ………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………………..
Changes to industry sectors and to the type of work available in Australia
Look at the graph on page 104. It shows changes in the percentage of workers in
each of the main industry sectors from 1901 to 2001. These patterns of change have
continued in the last 10 years.
Classify the following list of jobs into the industry sectors shown on the graph.
Job type
Industry sector
Job type
Industry sector
Farmer
Child care worker
Bus driver
Hairdresser
Carpenter
Electrician
Shop assistant
Truck driver
Car salesman
Assembly line
worker
Nurse
Lawyer
fisherman
Call centre worker
Which three industry sectors have shown the greatest change from 1901 to 2001?
Mining is a very important part of the Australian economy. How can there be a
smaller percentage of the population working in mining now than in 1901?
When was manufacturing most important as an employer in the Australian
economy? Give three reasons why manufacturing has declined as an important
employer.
Jobs requiring little or no skill have increased/decreased and jobs requiring more
education and skills have increased/decreased.
Bankstown LGA workforce at a glance
What types of jobs are most common in the Bankstown area?
Changes in the way we work
As well as changes in the types of jobs that are available, there have been significant
changes in the ways that we work over the past three decades. Look at the graphs
and statistics on page 105 to answer the following.
What has happened to the total number of people employed? Is this
expected/unexpected? Why?
What has happened to the number of people working full-time?
What has happened to the number of people working part-time?
Casual workers do not receive any paid leave entitlements such as sick leave and
holiday leave. Look at the table. From 1994 to 2004 has the number of people
without paid leave increased/decreased.
Reasons for the growth of part-time and casual work
Table 5.1b page 106
Changes in demand – these are changes that the employer wants, sometimes
because these changes are wanted by their customers. The greatest movement to
part time and casual work is in the retailing, hospitality and health and community
services sectors.
Longer opening hours and more flexible organisation of staff (more when a lot of
demand, less when little demand) have been the main forces driving casualisation in
the retailing and hospitality areas. Similar demands for more flexibility from
customers have driven changes in the health and community services area.
Along with the changes in what employers want and need has been a deregulation
of business and the labour market that have allowed the greater use of casual
workers.
Technological changes in sectors such as banking have reduced the number of staff
required and banks have moved from mainly full time staff to a larger percentage of
part-time staff.
Page 107
Look at the table showing the advantages and disadvantages of different ways of
working.
What do you think is the most important advantage of fulltime work?
What do you think is the most important advantage of part time work?
What do you think is the most important advantage of casual work?
What do you think is the most important advantage of being self employed?
What do you think is the most important disadvantage of fulltime work?
What do you think is the most important disadvantage of part time work?
What do you think is the most important disadvantage of casual work?
What do you think is the most important disadvantage of being self employed?
Alternative forms of employment are opening up
Opportunities to work in other than full-time work have increased. They include:
* part-time work (either casual or permanent)
* temporary contracts to meet a short term employment need or for a specific
project
* on call/standby and shift work
* job sharing
* tele-work using internet and other communication systems to work either in a
centre and/or from home
More individuals who cannot, or don’t wish to, find full-time employment or to
supplement part time employment are becoming self-employed in small businesses,
usually as sole traders. Examples of such businesses include:
* hobby businesses (eg making goods to sell at markets)
* freelancing (eg a reporter who writes a story and then sells it to a newspaper
or magazine, a photographer that sells photographs to news media)
* consulting – providing specialist services to a business that does not employ
someone to do that job themselves (eg environmental impact reports or engineering
reports, new computer software designed for particular business needs)
* home-based businesses – these may be low value such as piece work in the
textile industry or telemarketing or high value such as computer design
* home service industries such as lawn mowing, dog washing or walking, cleaning
homes and other domestic services
* existing businesses – buying an existing business perhaps with a redundancy
payout
* franchises – buying into a franchised business which provides more training and
aid with aspects of running a business than if you simply buy an existing business
* contracting – working for a business or government department on a fixed term
contract ( 6 months to 2 years usually). Sometimes contracts may be renewed.
* cooperatives – joining up with other people to provide a service or market a
good. Still most common in farming industries.
Think of jobs you have had or jobs that friends or family have. How would you
classify the kind of work they have using the list on this page?
The documentary from 4 Corners 1992 The Wide World of Work shows the
economic conditions in which many of these changes really accelerated in Australia.
The impacts have been variable with some groups of workers and industries gaining
from the changes and others losing significantly. The changes that began in the
period of the late 1980’s and early 1990’s are still continuing and have made large
difference to our society, the way we work and our expectations both of work and
the availability of goods and services, but although there have been many gains,
there are still some groups who have lost as a result of all this change. These are
mainly still the same groups who were most displaced in the 1992 recession. We can
see this in the unemployment statistics.
From the employers point of view the major outcome from all this change is greater
flexibility of their workforce, having more opportunity to adjust the numbers of
workers to the demand for the product and to increase the productivity of workers.
Labour costs are a major cost for most businesses and being able to use the
workforce in the most productive way is very important to remaining profitable. On
the other hand workers are often concerned about job security and being able to
regularly work sufficient hours to earn an income that meets their needs. As
Australia has one of the highest levels of casual employment in the developed world
many workers have concerns about their job security
How are wages and conditions determined in Australia?
Employment contracts and industrial relations
A contract of employment is made when an employer offers someone work and
agrees to pay them for their work. It becomes binding when the employee accepts
the contract. In Australia the minimum conditions of these employment contracts are
regulated by the Federal or State Government and their agencies. Over the last
decade Federal law and regulations have become more important in determining
minimum wages and conditions and Fair Work Australia is the major Federal
Government agency. In the 2000’s and especially in 2006/7 (Work Choices under
the Howard government) there has been a lot of political and sometimes industrial
dispute about the level of regulation and the relative power of Unions, employees,
employer organisations and employers.
Essentially employer groups want to deregulate the labour market (reduce the
number of controls on wages and working conditions) and negotiate individual
contracts with their workers and employee groups want to see minimum standards
maintained and use collective bargaining ( employees bargaining as a group rather
than an individual)
The main types of employment agreements in Australia are:
Awards – where set wages and working conditions apply to large group of workers
doing the same type of work for different employers. Up until the 1990’s this was the
most important type of employment contract but it now the least common.
Enterprise agreement – where an employment contract is made between the an
enterprise or business and all the workers who work in that business. The most
common type of employment contract in large businesses.
Australian workplace agreements – individual contracts between employers and
employees the can be variable between employees in the same business as long as
they meet the minimum standards. These are the most controversial. They have
been used for high skilled and high paid workers for a long time but are slowly
becoming more common with lower skilled, lower paid workers. Unions object to
them, especially for low paid workers because of the power imbalance and believe
they are being used to push down wages and conditions.
Industrial relations
When employees and employers are negotiating new agreements, employees have
the right to strike under certain conditions and employers have the right to lock out
employees. Neither of these are a good outcome and the number of strikes and
stop works and lockouts have decreased in the last 20 years but occasionally a very
bitter dispute leads to conditions where clearly there is little chance of agreement
from either side. In these conditions industrial courts or commissions, such as the
Fair Work commission can force the two sides to negotiation or if that doesn’t work to
arbitration where a judge of the court will make the final decisions about what is fair
and acceptable to resolve the dispute. Often when this happens no-one is happy
about the outcome but it is now a legal court contract and must be followed for the
length of the contract, normally about 3 years until the next round of negotiations on
wages and conditions begins.