“Under this [Labor] government we’ve seen one manufacturing job lost every 19 minutes.” - Opposition industry spokeswoman Sophie Mirabella, Q&A, 1 July. The Conversation contacted Mirabella’s office…
Australia’s unemployment is 5.5%. How does that stack up internationally?
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“Australia has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the developed world.” - Finance minister Penny Wong, The Drum opinion article, 14 January. Several ministers, including finance minister Penny Wong…
Millions of workers struggle on the emerging periphery while those at the core enjoy the benefits of stability and skills.
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The Fair Work Commission’s recent wage review may have struck an increased pay deal for low-paid workers but its decision overlooks the growth of a worrying new divide in the Australian workforce. With…
Human resource managers will often shy away from hiring overqualified employees, but research shows that they can be an asset.
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Overqualified workers are often seen as the pariah of human resources but these employees can be a constructive or a destructive influence on your business, depending on the way they are managed. In my…
How will we know whether or not Treasurer Wayne Swan’s federal budget is a good one? The popular test used to be pretty simple: deliver jobs for all or face the axe. Even when the old Keynesian-style full-employment…
Victims of domestic violence can suffer at work as well as at home.
AAP/Angela Brkic
As global attention has focused this week on the issue of violence against women via the One Billion Rising movement, Australia is at the forefront of a wholly new approach to dealing with the impacts…
The Federal Government claims Australia’s employment services are world class - but how effective are they really?
A new report from the OECD on Australia’s employment service system has prompted the Federal Government to claim that Australia is a “world leader in employment participation” and that Job Services Australia…
Recent arguments suggesting the size of the political debate around the Tasmanian forestry industry is disproportionate to its economic importance is misleading.
AAP
The Australia Institute (TAI) has recently used Census data to claim that the Tasmanian forest industry employs only 975 workers. Based on this, they argued that the size of the political debate about…
Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin and Indigenous Health Minister Warren Snowdon discuss the Closing The Gap report in June.
AAP/ Penny Bradfield
It almost goes without saying, but stable, well-paid employment remains one of the key ways to protect people from poverty and exclusion. And that’s never truer than for our Indigenous population. Aside…
What are the benefits and risks of an ageing workforce? Image source: www.shutterstock.com.
Welcome to Shades of Grey, a series from The Conversation that examines the challenges posed by Australia’s ageing workforce, Today, Macquarie University’s Ben Spies-Butcher explains how increasing the…
Australia’s boom investment conditions will begin tailing off by 2014, according to a Deloitte Access Economics report - so what does this mean for current labour shortages?
Much public discussion around the current mining boom focuses on the lack of qualified staff to fill an expanding employment market. But yesterday’s report by Deloitte Access Economics warning that the…
Equal pay is not the only obstacle women face in the labour market: there’s also higher unemployment, underemployment, and heightened risk of job insecurity.
Victor
The quest for equal pay between men and women represents one of the oldest battle lines for feminism. The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) finds that women’s wages are now 17.4…
Indigenous community jobs aren’t part of the mainstream economy, but they fit the needs of the community well.
Kayt Davies
Among all the school payments and defence cuts, last week’s federal budget also quietly committed an additional $5.2 billion to the government’s Closing the Gap program. It’s a vote of faith from the government…
Teenage VCAL (Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning) students Nat (left) and Jordan credit VCE alternative scheme for giving them a future.
AAP/Jane Vashti Ryan
More than 33,000 disenfranchised young Australians are taking part in at least 400 “non-conventional schooling” programs, according to the largest ever national survey of students who have fallen out of…
Discrimination on the basis of irrelevant criminal records is rife in Australia.
Flickr/Waponi
Applying for a job is stressful enough, but if you have a criminal record, even if it’s not relevant to the job you’re applying for, it can be a nightmare. Employers in Australia regularly discriminate…
The Federal Government has fast-tracked applications by skilled US workers to fill trades gaps in Australia, citing the close relationship between the countries. But motives of employers pushing the scheme should examined critically.
AAP
The Federal Government recently announced that it would use the 457 visa skilled migration program to fast-track the number of skilled workers applying from the United States. In defending this move, Federal…
Their jobs may not be as glamorous as digging up ore or building cars, but public servants’ work on protecting Australia from climate change is even more important.
Natural Step Online
Yesterday’s announcement that one-third of jobs in the Department of Climate Change will be cut is yet another step back in the ALP’s half-hearted dance with climate change policy. Former Prime Minister…
Developing smaller urban areas may mean better employment and living conditions for migrant workers.
AFP
SEVEN BILLION PEOPLE: The world’s seven billionth person is likely to be born today. Beatriz Carrillo Garcia, lecturer in China Studies at the University of Sydney looks at effect a growing population…
There are health benefits for indigenous Australians when they live in smaller homeland communities.
Flickr/Rusty Stewart
Government efforts to “close the gap” between indigenous and white Australians ignore the needs of nearly 1000 homeland communities on the Indigenous estate. Australian citizens living at the most remote…