Things far from rosy in Aust workplace

Photo / Mark Mitchell

CANBERRA - The glow is starting to fade on working life in the lucky country.

Although official unemployment hovers around a low 5 per cent, jobs growth is soaring and average full-time earnings run at about A$65,000 ($80,580), new reports point to big holes in the picture.

These show that casual, part-time and contract work are steadily replacing permanent employment, and endemic job stress is costing the nation at least A$730 million a year.

Women also continue to be paid less than men and are sidelined from senior jobs in a trend that may see gender quotas imposed.

The reports say that, across Australia, much working life is changing for the worse.

A study by Sydney University's Workplace Research Centre found that the nation's casual workforce has grown to about two million, with non-permanent work outstripping standard full-time employment.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions said the study showed that the trend is increasing financial risk among working families, exacerbated by growing fixed costs.

Family spending on non-food fixed costs had risen from 37 per cent to 42 per cent of household budgets, adding to high debt levels.

At work, stress from high workloads, lack of control over how jobs are performed, employment insecurity, lack of reward for effort and little social support in the workplace are hammering workers' mental health.

A study released yesterday by the Victorian Government agency VicHealth said about 1.5 million employees suffered work-related mental strain and depression - most of which could be avoided.

The study said that, of those who reported symptoms in the previous year, almost 40 per cent did not have access to paid sick leave entitlements.

It also said the impact was much wider than these figures suggested. Work-related mental illness hit family life and child-rearing, ate into leisure time and cost an estimated A$209 million a year in compensation claims for psychological injury.

And the study said the annual cost would be much higher than the estimated A$730 million, because other factors such as bullying and sexual harassment had not been included.

Further problems afflict women in the workforce.

Canberra University's National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling said the pay gap between men and women widened last financial year, with full-time working females earning 18 per cent less than men.

The centre said that the average Australian woman would earn almost A$1 million less over her lifetime than the average male worker. Female tertiary graduates earned A$2000 less than male counterparts in their first job, and A$7500 less after five years in the workforce.

Women were also two and a half times more likely to live in poverty in their old age than men.

Another report released yesterday by the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency said progress in breaking Australia's glass ceiling continued to be glacial.

This year's census of women in leadership said the number of female executive managers and board directors in the Australian Stock Exchange's top 200 companies had barely changed over the past eight years.

Women held only about 8 per cent of board memberships and executive key management jobs, with just six female chief executive officers and five female chairs among the nation's corporate elite.

The report said even more alarming was the fact that women held only 4 per cent of the "line" positions that fed future leaders into the corporate pipeline, and that more than half of the top companies did not have women on their boards.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick said the latest census was a wake-up call for listed companies, which from next year would have to set targets for women on boards and in top executive jobs.

If this did not work, Broderick said she would urge the introduction of quotas.

"If the 2012 census does not reveal a dramatic increase in the number of women in board director and chair positions ... I would suggest we need to consider putting stronger initiatives in place," she said.