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20 July 2009

20 July 2009. Dr. John Buchanan Director of the Workplace Research Centre University of Sydney. Presented to the ACTU Jobs Summit, 20 July 2009. Views within are those of the author and not necessarily those of the ACTU. .

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20 July 2009

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  1. 20 July 2009 Dr. John Buchanan Director of the Workplace Research Centre University of Sydney Presented to the ACTU Jobs Summit, 20 July 2009. Views within are those of the author and not necessarily those of the ACTU. 

  2. Time for renewal:working hours, workforce development and full employment John Buchanan, Mike Rafferty and Serena Yu Workplace Research Centre University of SydneyJuly 2009

  3. Introduction • The current trajectory of productivity and employment growth is unsustainable and undesirable • Improving working hours and workforce development is essential for better efficiency and fairness • Immediate priorities: • Improving job quality and workforce development simultaneously through redistributing hours • Ensuring these are part of new, sustainable flows of consumption and finance. • Acknowledgement: work done jointly with Mike Rafferty and Serena Yu at the WRC.

  4. The problems • Jobless growth in recovery • Ordinary productivity performance • Falling job quality • hours • workforce development

  5. Multifactor Productivity (MFP) Growth: mid 1960s to mid 20006

  6. Crisis and renewal – where to from here? • Employment returns to pre-recession levels well after positive GDP growth returns7

  7. Growth in Non Standard Employment • Falls in FT casual and self employed since August 20071

  8. Working Hours • Strong growth in those working extended hours (45 hours plus) 2

  9. Crisis and renewal – where to from here? • Structural rise in underemployment after each recession, reflecting growth in non standard employment8

  10. Working hours preferences9 • Full-timers who are happy • Men work 45 hours on average • Women work 42 on average • Full-timers who want fewer hours • Men work 50 hours on average and want 36 • Women work 46 and want 32 • Part-timers who want more hours • Men work 18 and want 31 • Women work 18 and want 28

  11. Skills Mismatches • Persistent shortages in health and engineering professionals4

  12. Skills Mismatches • Strong growth in educational attainment5 • NCVER 2007 Employer Survey – 40% of employers rate employees as overqualified

  13. Employer training expenditure Sources:

  14. Where next? (a) Principles • Redefine and improve working time norms • Rights over the life-course • Shortening working life (not just ‘average’ full time working week) • Broaden workforce developments rights and obligations • Career breaks • Rethinking employer contribution over the cycle • Recalibrate the wider policy mix • Target quality not job quantity of ‘growth’ • Work as well as environmental dimensions

  15. Where next? (b) Examples • Linking the redistribution of hours and workforce development • Massive defacto worksharing already occurring • Explicit efforts to link down time to development (possible Auto precedent and buckets of OS experience) • Broaden workforce developments rights and obligations • a new vision for Long service leave? • Lessons from the Training Guarantee and HECs (bringing employers back in) • Recalibrate the wider policy mix • The importance of a new narrative: ‘workplaces of the future’

  16. Conclusion • Jobless growth and ordinary productivity performance can be overcome • Better hours of work and workforce development can help achieve this • But no solution unless embedded in changed flows of consumption and finance as well • These are not ‘luxury policy issues’ that can only be be dealt with in the long run • They are vital for union and not just economic renewal

  17. Sources • ABS, Labour Market Statistics (2009) cat. no 6105.0 • ABS, Detailed Labour Force Survey (2009) cat. no 6291.0 • ABS, Household Income and Income Distribution (2006), cat. no 6523.0 • Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), Skilled Vacancies Indexes (2009), Trend Data • ABS, Education and Work (2008), cat. no. 6227.0 • Quiggin, J (2006), ‘Stories about Productivity’,  Australian Bulletin of Labour, Vol 32, no 1 2006, pages 18 - 26 • ABS, Labour Force Survey cat. no 6202; Australian National Accounts, cat. no 5206.0 Table 2 • ABS, Labour Force Survey, unpublished data • Brigid van Wanrooy et al, Working lives: Statistics and Stories, Australia at Work, second wave report, University of Sydney, October 2008 10. ABS. Employer Training Expenditure, Australia, July – September 1990, 1993 and 1996, Cat No6353 and ABS, Employer Training Expenditure and Practices, Australia, 2001 – 02 Cat No 6362.0

  18. Wage Inequality • Top quintile income growth has been the highest over the last decade3

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