Casual Employment

Casual Employment

Introduction

Election promises from Labor and liberals 2004

2004 is an election year in Australia and one of the issues that the parties have diverse election promises on is to which extent employers should be authorized to use casual workers, and what rights the casual workforce should be entitled to.

Casual workers play a central part in the Australian labor market as it is the fastest growing form of employment. Next to Spain, Australia has the second largest casual workforce in the world (Munn, 2004), with an ongoing apparent trend towards additional increase. In a research note done by the Department of Parliamentary Services, it is stated that in 2003 that over a quarter of all wage and salary earnings were employed on a casual basis, and that since 1988 more then half of all new jobs created have gone to casual workers (Kryger, 2003-04). This leads to an open debate whether or not government intervention should be used to improve job security for the growing number of casual workers.

The Australian Labour Party (ALP) states; if they are to receive power, they will encourage the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) to give long-term regular employed casual workers the right to become permanent employed if the they expresses desire for it. This means that ALP wants additional permanent employees and less casual workers (Gartrell, 2004). While The Liberal Party of Australia (LPA) conversely has a devotion to enhancing labor market flexibility and believes that the ALP propose would hurt the economy to much. This will imply more casualisation of the workforce (Loughhane, 2004).

Casual employees

There is no standard definition of a casual worker, but one prevalent perception is that a casual employee is someone in a job that is "short term, irregular and uncertain".

Several employers regard a casual employee to be a member of staff who is paid a higher hourly rate than a full or part-time permanent employee, and they think that this rate compensates for the lack of paid leave and other entitlements (Wageline, 2004). However, hourly rate does not define casuals.

Informal recruits should have no expectations of ongoing work, and are free to refuse to work at any time due to other commitments (Wageline, 2004). They normally have no entitlements to superannuation, annual, long service, parental or sick leave and little or no industrial protection or security (Munn, 2004), which means that they can be retrenched without a preceding warning (Munn, 2004).

The Department of Consumer and Employment Protection defines casual workers as employees that are working for short periods of time on an irregular basis with their actual hours varying from week to week, paid by the hours and without getting annual or sick leave. They don't have stable preliminary or concluding schedules, or average hours of work, but are generally contacted on a regular basis and asked to work, without ever knowing exactly when they are required (Wageline, 2004).

Trends

According to ANZ's economic update in May 2004, the number of casual workers has increased steadily over the past 15 years (Munn, 2004), however there is a considerable downfall in the rate off growth of casual positions. Rising from 19 per cent of all wages and salary earners in 1988 to 26 per cent in 1996 (Kryger, 2003-04), and then only a further 2% by 2003, making it a 28 per cent increase in total (Kryger, 2003-04).

Most casual employees are concentrated in a small number of occupations (Munn, 2004), and according to ANZ; the retail trade is the main employer of all casuals, with 44.2% of all employment in the industry being informal (Munn, 2004). Chris Munn from ANZ states that; 'The growth in the property and business services has seen this industry become the next most significant employer of casuals, with 30.3% of all employment in the industry being casual' (Munn, 2004).

While casuals previously have been associated with young people, like students: aged between 15-24; not looking for a long term commitment to the labor market, and females (Munn, 2004), they are now drawn from a wide cross section of the Australian population (Kryger, 2003-04). The number of males in casual positions has increased by 151 per cent over the last 15 years compared to the 62 per cent in female casual employment (Kryger, 2003-04). Implicating that the numbers between male and female casuals are coming closer to an equal (Kryger, 2003-04).

Why the casual workforce has grown?

ANZ argues that casual work has become a popular form of employment because it allows people to combine work with studies and family responsibilities (Munn, 2004). ANZ's goes on saying; 'The growth is a equally result of the demand and supply factors, and it enables people to get "a foot in the door" when looking for permanent employment' (Munn, 2004), and in addition there's the actuality that casual labor provides an alternative to unemployment fore those who have a diffident to no education or working skills (Munn, 2004). However as argued by the Department of Parliamentary Services, the states with the highest occurrence of informal employment are frequently the same as the states with the highest unemployment rates (Kryger, 2003-04); this implies that the growing casual workforce is more a result of few ongoing jobs available, rather then the actual preference for casual work (Kryger, 2003-04).

ANZ' keeps arguing in their economic update for 2004 that; the main reason for an increase in the number of casual workers, are the demand, being the employers (Munn, 2004). Because employers seek to operate their business as efficiently as possible, in order to keep up with globalization and increased competition in the marketplace (Munn, 2004). Casual workers provides flexibility as well as they are cheaper to employ, taking into account that they aren't at liberty to non-wage benefits and notice can be achieved without severance payment (Munn, 2004). ANZ also states that the development in the service industry has contributed to the ascend in casual labor, as they provide work for a higher quantity of casuals than all other industries apart from the retail sector (Munn, 2004).

Pros and cons

One in four Australians are informally engaged in society's workforce today (Anonymous, 2003), and because there is a rapid and unavoidable growth in the need and use of casual employees; it is important that both sides of the employment relationship