Victorian Government submission to the Senate Select Committee on Job Security: inquiry into the impact of insecure or precarious employment

The Victorian Government considers that insecure or precarious employment in Australia is too prevalent, and its adverse impacts on individual workers and the broader community warrant intervention by government, whilst still ensuring that entrepreneurial and innovative businesses are encouraged. Some key points covered in this submission include: (1) In 2017, for the first time since these statistics have been collected, the proportion of employed Australians filling a standard job fell below 50 per cent. Less than half of employed Australians now work in a permanent full-time paid position with basic entitlements (like sick pay and paid holidays); (2) In total, 72 per cent of new jobs created since the bottom of the coronavirus (COVID-19) economic downturn are without paid leave entitlements; (3) The disproportionate impacts of the pandemic on women's employment and economic security has been driven by the overrepresentation of women in casualised employment; (4) Women are the majority of workers in three of the four industries with the highest incidence of insecure work; (5) Insecure work has been identified in numerous inquiries into wage theft as a contributing factor, due to the fear of losing work; and (6) There are inadequate protections for non-employee platform workers.

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