In the News...

ACTU warn against the ‘Casualisation’ of the Australian workforce… and have stated that more workers than ever were employed on an ‘insecure basis’. As a part of the ACTU’s campaign launch (against casual employment), they’ve announced that more than 2 million workers (nationally) were employed on a casual basis and approximately 1 million workers are contractors. Of this some 66% work in Hospitality and 40% in Retail, but other sectors (i.e. Finance and Education) are embracing a casual workforce;

Shorter after-school shifts in retail… Fair Work Australia (FWA) has varied the General Retail Industry Award to allow 90 minute after school shifts for secondary students. This variation applies from 1 October 2011, therefore a casual employee can now be employed for a minimum 90 minute shift instead of the standard 3 hour minimum… of course this only relates to school students, and so certain conditions must be met before applying for this change to work practices;

Job Vacancies update… for the period ending August 2011, the total job vacancies were 183,700 which is a 1.3% decline from the period ending May 2011. The number of job vacancies in the public sector 17,400 and in the private [sector] 166,400;

More than one in ten families with dependants were jobless… ABS figures released recently show that in June this year 10.5% of the 2.9 million Australian families with dependants were jobless. This figure has remained steady over the past few years