Jim Stanford, Director of the Centre for Future Work, was recently featured in a new video produced in collaboration with United Voice and the Flip production company.

Workforce (a labour relations bulletin published by Thomson-Reuters) recently surveyed major IR figures in Australia on what they saw as the big issues in 2018, and what they expect as the major talking points for 2019. Jim Stanford, economist and Centre for Future Work director, was one of those surveyed, and here are his remarks.  What

In this commentary, Centre for Future Work Associate Dr. Anis Chowdhury discusses the economic benefits of industry-wide collective bargaining. In addition to supporting wage growth, industry-wide wage agreements generate significant efficiency benefits, by pressuring lagging firms to improve their innovation and productivity performance. The experience of other countries (such as Germany and Singapore) suggests that

Collective bargaining in private sector workplaces could be almost extinct by 2030 under current rules, new research from the Centre for Future Work shows.

For the third consecutive quarter, the share of Australian GDP paid out in wages, salaries and superannuation contributions to workers has shrunk.  Data for the September quarter of 2018, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, shows that labour compensation accounted for just 46.85% of total economic output – one of the lowest on record.

The recent Victorian election results showed Australian voters want governments to play a pro-active role delivering public services, infrastructure, improved labour standards, and sustainability. They showed that in a time of deep cynicism with federal politics, States (and Territories) can play an important role filling the democratic void left by dysfunction and policy paralysis at

Australian wage growth has decelerated in recent years to the slowest sustained pace since the 1930s. Nominal wages have grown very slowly since 2012; average real wages (after adjusting for inflation) have not grown at all. The resulting slowdown in personal incomes has contributed to weak consumer spending, more precarious household finances, and even larger government deficits.

The 10th annual ‘Go Home On Time Day’ report by The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work estimates that Australian employees will work 3.2 billion hours of unpaid overtime for their employers this year, worth an estimated $106 billion in foregone wages.

Wednesday 21 November is Australia’s official “Go Home On Time Day,” sponsored by the Centre for Future Work and the Australia Institute. This represents the 10th year of our initiative, to provide light-hearted encouragement to Australian workers to actually leave their jobs when they are supposed to. Instead of working late once again – and allowing your employer to “steal” even more of your time, without even paying for it – why not leave the job promptly. Spend a full evening with your family or friends, visit the gym, see a movie – do anything other than work.

A potent tool for cleaning up misconduct in the industry is being overlooked by the Royal Commission into financial services.

Recent legal decisions are starting to challenge the right of employers to deploy workers in “casual” positions on an essentially permanent basis. For example, the Federal Court recently ruled that a labour-hire mine driver who worked regular shifts for years was still entitled to annual leave, even though he was supposedly hired as a “casual.” This decision has alarmed business lobbyists who reject any limit on their ability to deploy casual labour, while avoiding traditional entitlements (like sick pay, annual leave, severance rights, and more). For them, a “casual worker” is anyone who they deem to be casual; but that open door obviously violates the intent of Australia’s rules regarding casual loading.

The Centre for Future Work recently published a symposium of research investigating the long-term decline in the share of Australian GDP paid to workers (including wages, salaries, and superannuation contributions). The four articles, published in a special issue of the Journal of Australian Political Economy, documented the erosion of workers’ share of national income, its causes, and consequences.

As corporate profits continue to climb, new research from the Centre for Future Work shows the share of Australian GDP paid out to workers is hovering at a post-war low.

Trade unionists are gathering this week at the ACTU’s triennial Congress in Brisbane.  Jim Stanford, Director of the Centre for Future Work, participated in a panel on the Future of Work (an apt title!) at the Congress.

Trade unionists from across Australia are gathering in Brisbane this week for the 2018 Congress of the Australian Council of Trade Unions. And the Centre for Future Work will be there!

Reduced Sunday and holiday penalty rates for retail and hospitality workers failed to ignite the boom in employment as promised by employer groups who supported the change.

After years of decline, Australia’s manufacturing industry is finally recovering – adding almost 50,000 jobs in the last year, one of the best job-creation records of any sector in the whole economy. But that recovery could be cut short by growing shortages of skilled workers, according to a new report on vocational training in manufacturing.

Less than half of employed Australians now hold a “standard” job: that is, a permanent full-time paid job with leave entitlements. That’s the startling finding of a new report on the growing insecurity of work published by the Centre for Future Work.

Most Australians know in their guts that it’s pretty hard to find a traditional permanent job these days.  And now the statistics confirm it: less than half of employed Australians have one of those “standard” jobs.  And more than half experience one or more dimensions of insecurity: including part-time, irregular, casual, contractor, and marginally self-employed jobs.

For the first time on record, less than half of employed Australians hold a ‘standard job’: that is, a permanent full-time paid job with leave entitlements.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions has released a major policy paper outlining an ambitious, multi-faceted program to address the chronic shortage of work, and the steady erosion of job quality, in Australia. The full paper, Jobs You Can Count On, is available on the ACTU’s website.  It contains specific proposals to stimulate much stronger job-creation, reduce unemployment and underemployment, improve job quality (including through repairs to Australia’s industrial relations system), and ensure that all communities (including traditionally marginalised populations like indigenous peoples, women, youth, and people with disability) have full access to the decent work opportunities that the plan would generate.

Australia’s state and federal governments could help solve the problem of stagnant wages by better leveraging their own spending power.

A report released today by the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work shows Western Australia’s recent budget deficit is the result – not the cause – of deteriorating economic conditions.

Mainstream economists and conservative political leaders profess “surprise” at the historically slow pace of wage growth in Australia’s labour market. They claim that wages will start growing faster soon, in response to the normal “laws of supply and demand.”  This view ignores the importance of institutional and regulatory factors in determining wages and income distribution.  In fact, given the systematic efforts in recent decades to weaken wage-setting institutions (including minimum wages, the awards system, and collective bargaining), it is no surprise at all that wages have slowed to a crawl.  And the solutions to the problem are equally obvious: rebuild the power of those institutions, to support workers in winning a better share of the economic pie they produce.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent trade policies (including tariffs on steel and aluminium that could affect Australian exports) have raised fears of a worldwide slide into protectionism and trade conflict.  Trump’s approach has been widely and legitimately criticised.  But his argument that many U.S. workers have been hurt by the operation of current free trade

In the wake of the Trump Administration’s success in pushing a major company tax cut through the U.S. Congress, the Australian Treasurer has stepped up his calls for reduced company taxes here. He claims Australia will bypass the growth-inducing benefits of these tax cuts, but Dr. Anis Chowdhury, Associate of the Centre for Future Work, has compiled the economic evidence.  The U.S. experience shows no statistical evidence of any “trickle-down” growth dividend from company tax cuts.

The Centre for Future Work invites applications for an economist to join our research team in labour market research and policy analysis, working from our offices in Sydney or Canberra.

Measured by official employment statistics, Australia’s labour market has improved in recent months: full-time employment has grown, and the official unemployment rate has fallen. But dig a little deeper, and the continuing structural weakness of the job market is more apparent. In particular, labour incomes remain unusually stagnant. In this commentary, Centre for Future Work Associate Dr. Anis Chowdhry reflects on the factors explaining slow wage growth — and what’s required to get wages growing.

Progressives everywhere are grappling with developing policy proposals to improve the quantity and quality of work in our economy, as part of their broader vision for building more successful and inclusive societies. To this end, the Fabians Society in NSW recently published an interesting booklet of policy proposals, to inject into debate within the Labor Party and other fora. One chapter written by Sarah Kaine (Associate Professor at UTS and a member of the Centre for Future Work’s Advisory Committee) and Jim Stanford (Economist and Director of the Centre) deals head-on with the challenges facing work, and what can be done to make it better; it is reprinted below.

Paradoxically, underemployment and number of hours actually worked are both on the rise in Australia.