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Category: Research Reports

  • Gender Inequality in Australia’s Labour Market: A Factbook

    The factbook compiles evidence on over 60 different statistical indicators of gender inequality in Australia, organised into 18 different subject groupings. It paints a composite picture of how women are blocked from full participation in work and economic activity, experience greater precarity in employment, are paid less for their efforts, and experience other forms of exploitation (including violence and sexual assault in workplaces).

    Some of its more startling findings include:

    • The true wage gap between women and men is much larger than often reported. The commonly-cited gender wage gap of 14% only applies to women working in full-time positions, and excludes bonuses and overtime payments. However, women have less access to full-time jobs, and receive far less bonus and supplementary income than men. The gender gap in total wage income is 32% – more than twice as wide.
    • Women are much more subject to precarious and insecure work arrangements than men. They are far more likely to be employed in part-time, casual, and temporary positions than men. Only 43% of employed Australian women work in a traditional full-time permanent job with normal entitlements (such as paid sick leave, holidays, and superannuation). The rest all experience one or more dimensions of precarity in their jobs. That compares to 57% of men in permanent full-time jobs with entitlements.
    • Women who undertake self-employment are especially vulnerable. The report shows that 47% of self-employed women are in vulnerable business positions: working part-time, and working either without incorporation or without any other employees (or both). That compares to 19.% of self-employed men.
    • Women are now more likely to be members of a union than men, and make up more than half of union members. Women who are in a union earn 29% more per week than women who are not in a union. For part-time workers, the union advantage is even bigger: women union members earn 44% more than non-members

    “The statistical evidence is overwhelming that women are a long way from achieving equality in Australia’s workplaces,” said Alison Pennington, Senior Economist at the Centre for Future Work and co-author of the factbook.

    “These systemic and structural barriers to full participation and fair compensation are holding Australian women back and our economy is weaker for it.

    “Australian women need to be able to work and earn to their full potential. This requires powerful measures to support women workers in all aspects of their lives; from quality affordable childcare to much stronger protections against violence and sexual harassment.”

    The post Gender Inequality in Australia’s Labour Market: A Factbook appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Excessive Hours and Unpaid Overtime: 2019 Update (GHOTD)

    New research from The Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work estimates that Australian workers are currently working an average of 4.6 hours of unpaid overtime each week, which translates to 6 weeks of full time work without pay, per employee, per year – with an annual worth of $81.5 billion for Australian employers.

    The post Excessive Hours and Unpaid Overtime: 2019 Update appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • The Relationship Between Superannuation Contributions and Wages

    The research refutes claims made by some commentators and lobbyists that higher superannuation contributions would automatically lead to lower wages, and hence would be self-defeating. The new research finds no statistical evidence for that claim in Australian empirical data.

    The paper reviews economic statistics from the introduction of superannuation to the present. On average, wages were more likely to accelerate and grow at a faster rate when the superannuation guarantee (SG) rate was increased, than to decelerate or grow more slowly. This indicates a slight positive correlation between wages growth and changes in employers’ minimum SG rate.

    The paper also reviews theoretical predictions and empirical findings from previously published economic research. Even under very restrictive and unrealistic assumptions about competitive market-clearing behaviour in labour markets, the expectation of a fully offsetting one-for-one trade off between wages and SG contributions only occurs in the special cases of perfectly inelastic labour supply, or perfect substitutability between voluntary and policy-induced personal savings. Neither of those conditions prevail in practice. More realistic economic models (that allow for responsiveness in labour supply, minimum wages, and other real-world features) do not anticipate a full trade-off – and many expect no trade-off at all.

    The paper concludes that current record-low wage growth in Australia cannot be “fixed” by abandoning scheduled increases in the SG rate (which is currently legislated to grow from 9.5% of wages to 12% over a five-year period, beginning 1 July 2021). Abandoning those increases would only further suppress the total compensation received by workers, which has been falling steadily as a share of GDP for decades. Instead, weak wage growth should be tackled with direct wage-boosting policies; the determination of wages and superannuation contributions are largely independent policy decisions.

    The post The Relationship Between Superannuation Contributions and Wages in Australia appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Precarity and Job Instability on the Frontlines of NDIS Support Work

    In this new report, researchers document the experience of front-line disability service workers under the NDIS based on first-hand qualitative interviews.

    The report was a joint initiative of two leading academic researchers (Prof. Donna Baines, formerly of the University of Sydney, and Dr. Fiona Macdonald of RMIT) and the Centre for Future Work. Researchers conducted detailed face-to-face interviews with 19 front-line disability service workers, mostly in the Newcastle, NSW region. (Newcastle was one of the locations chosen for NDIS trials, so workers in the region have more experience with the reality of NDIS delivery problems.)

    The interviews indicated 8 major problems negatively affecting the stability, quality and sustainability of work for disability support workers:

    1. The new system is not providing sufficient support for participants with intellectual and other cognitive disabilities, including in designing and managing individual programs of care;
    2. DSWs are experiencing increased instability and precarity in their jobs, elevated levels of mental and physical stress, and irregular hours and incomes;
    3. New workers joining the disability services sector are often less skilled, less trained, less experienced, and sometimes reluctant;
    4. DSWs experience particular challenges working in the private realm of NDIS clients’ homes;
    5. The informal and inconsistent provision of transportation and other necessary functions to NDIS clients results in a significant shift of costs and risks to workers;
    6. DSWs are experiencing increased levels of violence in their work;
    7. Relationships with managers have changed dramatically under the new system, undermining effective supervision, coaching, and training; and
    8. Worker turnover, given the insecurity of work and income and the challenging conditions of work, is extreme.

    The deterioration in job stability and working conditions under the NDIS will inevitably impact on the quality of service experienced by NDIS clients; it will also exacerbate the overarching challenge of recruitment and retention facing disability service providers as they try to attract the 80,000 new full-time equivalent workers required to operate the scaled-up NDIS.

    The researchers conclude with several policy recommendations to improve the quality and stability of work for disability support workers, and the quality of care for participants.

    The post Precarity and Job Instability on the Frontlines of NDIS Support Work appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • The Future of Work for Australian Graduates

    The world of work is being transformed by a complex and interdependent set of forces – including technology, changes in workplace organisation and employment relationships, environmental and demographic challenges, and more. No group of workers will confront the reality of constant change more directly than young workers. As new entrants to the labour market, they cannot count on the protection of previous structures or practices to insulate them from coming changes. They immediately face the challenges of an increasingly precarious job market – one in which less than half of all employed Australians now fill a traditional “standard” job (full-time, permanent, paid work offering normal entitlements like paid leave and superannuation).

    Holding a university degree is still a vital and valuable asset for young workers entering this challenging and unstable milieu for the first time. Individuals with university degrees are more likely to be employed, to have more stable jobs, and to be paid more. But despite this relative advantage enjoyed by university graduates, employment conditions have become much more challenging even for graduates. Rates of graduate employment in full-time work are down significantly over the past decade, and there is evidence of a growing mismatch and underutilisation of university graduates in positions that do not fully or even partly utilise their hard-won knowledge and skills. At the same time, employer complaints about supposed skills shortages and the dearth of “job-ready” graduates are as loud as ever; the report documents that those complaints need to be interpreted with considerable scepticism.

    Australia’s higher education system could do a much better job at anticipating the needs for highly-skilled workers in the future, evolving their program offerings in light of those needs, and then assisting students as they traverse their university educations and find meaningful, relevant work.

    This comprehensive new report from the Centre for Future Work, developed in conjunction with Graduate Careers Australia (an association that has worked to gather data and make recommendations regarding university graduate employment issues) provides an overview of the prospects and challenges faced by future university graduates. The report confirms that university education makes a vital, essential, and valuable contribution to Australians’ prosperity: both at an individual level for those who have attained higher education, and at the macroeconomic and social level. But it catalogues gaps and failures in crucial education-to-jobs transitions, considers the most likely factors contributing to those gaps and failures (while dispensing with some commonly-cited but unconvincing myths and stereotypes), and makes several concrete recommendations for policy change and innovation.

    Key findings of the report include:

    • Employment outcomes for university graduates have deteriorated notably since the GFC. Full-time work placements have deteriorated (from 85% in 2008 to 73% in 2018, measured by full-time employment 4 months after graduation). Many graduates report being underemployed: both quantitatively (working fewer hours than they want) and qualitatively (in jobs that do not fully or even partially use their hard-won expensive skills), and insecure work has become a big problem for graduates (like for others in the labour market).
    • Employers continue to complain about pressing “skills shortages” hampering their growth opportunities. But careful empirical data suggests this claim is questionable. Reported skills shortages in most occupations have in fact eased considerably since the GFC.
    • Another stereotype not backed up by hard data is the common assumption that STEM and technical skills are in the most short supply, and that STEM graduates will have the best employment outcomes. For example, math grads have one of the worst full-time employment placement rates of any discipline. Employers report they especially seek applicants with verbal, social, problem-solving, and communication skills.
    • Vocational degrees (tied to specific occupations, often regulated – like health care, engineering or teaching) have the best employment placement rates.
    • Therefore, the solution to graduate employment challenges must include better strategies for directly linking degrees to jobs: for example, through paid placements, occupational licensing, and accreditation.
    • Australia’s system for planning skills / higher education / job placement functions is fragmented, and often contradictory. We could learn a lot from other countries (especially in Europe) which have taken a more hands-on and direct approach to forecasting future skill requirements, planning higher education offerings accordingly, and channeling graduates directly into relevant career opportunities.
    • The report makes 9 specific recommendations to improve university-to-work transitions for future graduates, including establishing a national higher education planning capacity, and creating a timely and high-quality labour force information system.
    • An overarching recommendation in the report is a call for a new social compact for universities as major actors in Australia’s skills system. This includes increased public funding for universities attached to requirements for national policy coordination among universities, expanded employment-to-jobs programming, and stronger mechanisms connecting public research to the development of an innovation-intensive, high-value export-oriented industry policy.

    Download the full report, The Future of Work for Australian Graduates: The Changing Landscape of University-Employment Transitions in Australia, by Alison Pennington and Dr. Jim Stanford. There is also a 12-page summary report available for download. The report was commissioned by Graduate Careers Australia.

    The post The Future of Work for Australian Graduates appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Turning Gigs Into Decent Jobs (Victorian On-Demand Workforce)

    The government of Victoria is holding an important inquiry into the conditions and challenges of working in the ‘on-demand’ economy: a polite euphemism for gigs. The Centre for Future Work has made a submission.

    Our submission notes that digitally-mediated on-demand production typically incorporates five broad characteristics:

    • Work is performed on an on-demand or as-needed basis. Producers only work when their services are immediately required, and there is no guarantee of ongoing engagement.
    • Work is compensated on a piece-work basis. Producers are paid for each discrete task or unit of output, not for their time.
    • Producers are required to supply their own capital equipment. This typically includes providing the place where work occurs (their home, their car, etc.), as well as any tools, equipment and materials utilised directly in production. Because individual workers’ financial capacity to provide these up-front investments is limited, the capital requirements of platform work (at least that used directly by workers) are small.
    • The entity organising the work is distinct from the end-user or final consumer of the output, implying a triangular relationship between the producer, the end-user, and the intermediary.
    • Finally, some form of digital intermediation is utilised to commission the work, engage the producer, supervise it, deliver it to the final customer, and facilitate payment. In the modern economy, this last criteria is hardly exrtaordinary: virtually any job imaginable today relies on some form of digital task allocation or management.

    Despite the media hype which on-demand platforms have generated, the scale of employment engaged in on-demand work so far is rather modest. The number of people engaged in actual productive work organised through a digital platform is small (less than 1% of the labour force), and a large (likely majority) proportion of those rely on on-demand work for only a minority of their total income. Many people have signed up to perform work through one or more of these platforms, but do not stay with the platform long, and/or do not work many hours in the role.

    Another stereotype that needs to be challenged in considering on-demand work is the common claim that these employment practices are novel and innovative. Here it is crucial to distinguish between the technical innovations which these businesses utilise, and the changes in work organisation which those models also introduce. In fact, the major organisational features of digital platform work are not new at all. These practices have been used regularly in labour markets for hundreds of years; what is novel is the use of digital technologies for organising, supervising, and compensating work in that manner. And the growth of insecure or precarious work practices is not an essentially technology-driven phenomenon. Rather, the growing precarity of work, including in digitally-mediated on-demand jobs, reflects the evolution of social relationships and power balances, more than technological innovation in its own right. Appreciating the social and regulatory dimensions of technology and work organisation contributes to a more holistic and balanced understanding of the rise of on-demand work, its consequences, and its potential remedies.

    All the core features associated with on-demand work are long-standing. The practice of on-call or contingent labour – whereby workers are employed only when directly needed – has been common for hundreds of years. In an Australian context, a famous example is the former practice of dockworkers lining up each morning (for example, along Sydney’s ‘Hungry Mile’) in hopes of attaining employment that day; other examples are common in other sectors (including minerals, forestry, manufacturing, and agriculture).

    Home-based work, and other systems in which workers supply their own capital equipment, have also been common in many applications and contexts – from the ‘putting out’ system for manufacturing textile products and housewares in the early years of the industrial revolution, to the important role played by owner-operators in many modern industries (including transportation, resources, fisheries, and personal services).

    Piece-work compensation systems also have a long if uneven history. Employers have long aimed to tie compensation directly to output (as a way of shifting responsibility for managing work effort and productivity onto workers). Yet at the same time, the use of piece-work is constrained by numerous well-known problems, including difficulties in applying them in situations which require an emphasis on quality, not just quantity of output (like most service sector activities), and where work is performed jointly by teams or larger groups of workers.

    Finally, the triangular relationship that is evident in the on-demand economy between the worker/producer, the ultimate end-user of their labour (whether a business or a consumer), and an intermediary/‘middleman’ business is also very familiar from economic history. Past examples include labour hire services, “gang-masters,” and other forms of labour supply intermediation. Under this triangulated model of employment, it can be unclear who is the actual ‘employer’; this ambiguity opens the possibility for various negative practices and outcomes, which have been recognised for years in legislation, regulation, and jurisprudence. An example is Australia’s long-standing rules regarding ‘sham contracting’, and more recent initiatives to regulate labour hire businesses in Queensland and Victoria.

    In short, the core features of on-demand work are not novel; and claims that this way of organising work is ‘new’ are not valid. Rather, on-demand businesses reflect a resurgence of very old business practices, that date back hundreds of years. So ‘gig’ employers cannot be allowed to invoke claims of technological advancement, to justify work practices that are hundreds of years old – and in many cases violate community standards and traditional labour laws.

    The post Turning ‘Gigs’ Into Decent Jobs appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • On the Brink: Erosion of Enterprise Agreement Coverage

    The report shows that the number of current enterprise agreements in private Australian businesses has collapsed by 46% since the end of 2013. The number of private sector workers covered by enterprise agreements has plunged 34% in the same time. In 2017, just 12% of employed private sector workers were covered by an enterprise agreement – down from 19% in 2013.

    If current trends in renewals, new agreements, and terminations continue, less than 1800 agreements would survive to 2030, at which point just 2% of private sector workers would be covered by a collective agreement.

    The dramatic downturn in collective bargaining in Australian businesses reflects a number of simultaneous trends, creating a ‘perfect storm’ that jeopardises the future of private sector bargaining. These trends include a drop-off of renewals of expired enterprise agreements; the dramatic decline in the number of newly negotiated agreements; and a surge in terminations of agreements.

    “It is no exaggeration to conclude that collective bargaining in private businesses will go extinct in coming years if these devastating trends are not reversed,” said Alison Pennington, Economist with the Centre for Future Work and author of the report.

    The report provides a forward simulation of enterprise agreement-making if current trends in renewals, new agreements, and terminations continue. The simulation indicates that the total number of private sector enterprise agreements would fall by half (to below 6000) by 2023, and the proportion of private sector workers covered by agreements would fall below 6%. Things get worse in subsequent years, with less than 1800 agreements surviving by 2030, when only 2% of private sector workers would be covered by a collective agreement – unless urgent action is taken the change existing policies and restore effective access to collective bargaining.

    “The accelerated collapse of enterprise bargaining in the private sector has been a key cause of the unprecedented weakness in wage growth experienced in Australia since 2013,” Pennington said. “When workers have no collective voice or collective bargaining power, they have no chance of successfully negotiating better wage increases from their employers.”

    The report also shows that the rapid decline in enterprise agreement coverage for private sector workers has been mirrored by a rapid increase in the proportion of workers paid according to the minimum terms of Modern Awards.

    “The evidence is overwhelming that Australia’s current system of collective bargaining is completely inadequate for representing workers in our evolving economy, with an increasingly fragmented labour market,” Pennington concluded. “A viable collective bargaining system is essential to shared prosperity, but it will require far-reaching changes to the current rules to keep collective bargaining alive.” The report proposes several broad directions for reforming current laws and practices, to stop and reverse the dramatic decline in collective agreement coverage.

    PLEASE NOTE: This posted version of the paper corrects a previous error arising from a data coding problem which resulted in an inaccurate allocation of newly approved enterprise agreements between new and renewal agreements.

    The post On the Brink appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Excessive Hours and Unpaid Overtime: 2018 Update (GHOTD 10th anniversary)

    2018 marks the tenth annual Go Home on Time Day (GHOTD), an initiative of the Centre for Future Work at the Australia Institute that shines a spotlight on overwork among Australians, including excessive overtime that is often unpaid.

    Over many years, the Centre for Future Work and the Australia Institute have commissioned regular annual opinion polls to investigate overwork, unpaid overtime, and other instances of “time theft” in Australia. This year’s poll of 1459 Australians was conducted between September 17-26, with a sample that was nationally representative according to gender, age and state or territory.

    Of the 1459 respondents, 880 (or 60 percent) were currently in paid work. That subsample was then asked several questions regarding their hours of work, whether they wanted more work or less, and whether they worked unpaid overtime in their jobs.

    This report summarises the results of that polling, and places it in the context of national labour force trends:

    • There is growing evidence of a sharp polarisation in Australian employment patterns, between those with full-time, relatively secure jobs, and a growing portion working part-time, casual, temporary, or insecure positions.
    • In the survey, 54 percent were employed in permanent full-time jobs, while 46 percent were employed as part-time, casual or self-employed workers. In other words, almost half of the sample experienced one or more degrees of nonstandard or insecure work – broadly in line with the experience in the overall labour market.
    • Compared with last year, there was a significant increase in those wanting more paid hours (from 34 percent to 40 percent) and a decrease in those wanting fewer paid hours (from 19 percent to 15 percent). We believe this shift reflects the high levels of underemployment in Australia’s labour force, and the ongoing struggle of those in non-standard jobs to attain enough hours of work.
    • In the survey, 20 percent of full-time workers said they would prefer to work fewer hours, and 30 percent said they wanted more. 50 percent said their hours were about right.
    • By contrast, those in part-time or casual positions work far fewer and more uncertain hours, and most would prefer to work more – 54 percent of parttime workers and 63 percent of casual workers. This highlights the problems of underemployment and inadequate incomes experienced by the growing proportion of Australian workers in insecure jobs. Only 7 percent of part-time employees and 2 percent of casuals wanted fewer paid hours.
    • At the same time as many Australian workers report they would prefer more hours of paid work, the incidence of unpaid overtime is also growing: including coming in early, leaving late, working at home or on weekends, working through regular breaks and lunch hours, responding to calls or emails out of working hours, and more. Across all forms of employment, our respondents reported working an average of 6.0 hours of unpaid labour per week (up from an average of 5.1 hours in 2017 and 4.6 hours in 2016).
    • This translates into an annual average of 312 hours of unpaid overtime per worker per year across all forms of employment. Based on a standard 38-hour workweek, this is equivalent to more than 8 weeks (or 2 months) of unpaid work per worker per year.
    • Full-time workers reported the greatest incidence of unpaid overtime: on average 7.1 hours per week. This was a substantial increase from a reported 6 hours per week in last year’s survey.
    • Part-time workers worked on average 4.2 hours per week unpaid, while even casual workers worked on average 2.8 hours unpaid.
    • The aggregate value of this “time theft” is substantial. Across the workforce, we estimate the total value of unpaid overtime at $106 billion in 2018. This widespread non-payment for so much of Australians’ working time reduces family incomes, weakens consumer spending, and exacerbates the challenge of work-life balance.
    • In an era of wage stagnation, underemployment, insecure work and significant cost of living pressures, Australian workers cannot afford to give their time away to employers for free.

    The post Excessive Hours and Unpaid Overtime: 2018 Update appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Under the Employer’s Eye: Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance

    This year, our survey also included a special section focusing on the forms, prevalence, impacts and implications of electronic and digital monitoring and surveillance in Australian workplaces. Our goal was to investigate a secondary dimension of the time pressure facing Australian workers. It is not just that work is being extended into greater portions of our days (through unpaid overtime, the use of mobile phones and computers to reach workers at any time, pressure to not fully utilise annual leave, and similar trends). In addition, even within the work day, time pressure is intensified with the expectation that every moment of work time must be used for productive purposes – an expectation that is increasingly reinforced through omnipresent systems of monitoring, performance measurement, and surveillance. The result of these twin forces is an overall inability for people to escape from the demands of work: neither at the workplace (even for short periods), nor away from it.

    Part I of this report begins by describing the main forms of modern electronic monitoring and surveillance (EMS) that have placed more Australian workers “under their employer’s eye.” These methods include the use of location tracking technologies, monitoring of emails and social media content, the “gamification” of work, digital methods of performance monitoring, and even electronic systems for employee discipline and dismissal. Following sections examine the various purposes of modern EMS systems, and the extent of their application. This is followed by a brief description of the legal and regulatory system governing EMS in Australia; current regulations limiting employers’ use of these systems are sparse and inconsistent. The last section of Part I discusses the direct and indirect consequences of these new forms of monitoring and surveillance for workers. It argues that the impact of omnipresent surveillance in workplaces may be contributing to the slower wage growth which has so concerned Australian economists and policy experts in recent years; because it is now easier and cheaper to monitor and “motivate” employees through surveillance and potential discipline, employers feel less pressure to provide positive economic incentives (such as job security, promotion, and higher wages) to elicit loyalty and effort from their workforces.

    Part II of the report then reports the findings of our original survey data regarding the forms, extent and impacts of EMS systems in Australian workplaces, and the attitudes of Australian workers towards these technologies and trends. We surveyed 1,459 people between 26 October and 6 November 2018, using an online survey methodology, conducted by Research Now. The sample was nationally representative with respect to gender, age and state and territory.

    The post Under the Employer’s Eye: Electronic Monitoring & Surveillance in Australian Workplaces appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.

  • Four Views on Basic Income, Job Guarantees, and the Future of Work

    The unprecedented insecurity of work in Australia’s economy – with the labour market buffeted by technology, globalisation, and new digital business models – has sparked big thinking about policies for addressing this insecurity and enhancing the incomes and well-being of working people. Two ideas which have generated much discussion and debate are proposals for a basic income (through which all adults would receive an unconditional minimum level of income whether they were employed or not) and a job guarantee (whereby government would ensure that every willing worker could be employed in some job, such as public works or public services, thus eliminating involuntary unemployment).

    Progressives have campaigned for generations for stronger income security programs and for a commitment to full employment by government. So these ideas have a long pedigree. However, there is great discussion over both the implementation and cost of these proposals, and their broader (and perhaps unintended) economic and political consequences.

    To shed some additional, constructive perspective on these proposals, we are pleased to present four short commentaries on basic income, job guarantees, and the future of work by four leading Australian experts on the economics and politics of work.

    The four commentaries are posted below in alphabetical order of their authors:

    • Dr. Frances Flanagan, Research Director, United Voice: The Policy and Politics of Basic Income: A Few Concerns
    • Troy Henderson, Economist, Centre for Future Work: Situating Basic Income and a Job Guarantee in a Hierarchy of Pragmatic-Utopian Reform
    • Dr. Ben Spies-Butcher, Dept. of Sociology, Macquarie University: Basic Income as a Progressive Priority
    • Dr. Jim Stanford, Economist and Director, Centre for Future Work: Work, Technology, and Basic Income: Issues to Consider

    Three of the commentaries (by Flanagan, Henderson, and Spies-Butcher) were initially presented to the recent “Reboot the Future” conference in Sydney, hosted by Greens NSW Political Education Trust. The authors expanded and edited their remarks for the purposes of this symposium. We thank the organisers for their cooperation. The fourth commentary (by Stanford) arose from recent discussions within the Centre for Future Work’s voluntary Advisory Committee. Together, we think these nuanced commentaries add valuable perspective to these important but complex policy debates.

    Our publication of these commentaries coincides with this week’s annual General Assembly of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN), being held this year at the University of Tampere in Finland. In a personal capacity, Centre for Future Work economist Troy Henderson is presenting at the Assembly on his Ph.D. research regarding the fiscal and labour market impacts of basic income.

    We will continue to consider the advantages and disadvantages of both these important policy proposals in future research and commentary. We thank the authors for their contributions to this discussion, and welcome further feedback!

    The post Four Views on Basic Income, Job Guarantees, and the Future of Work appeared first on The Australia Institute's Centre for Future Work.