By Marina Cameron
For the third consecutive month jobless figures rose by 13,000 in August to 8.8%. Despite a slight drop in September to 8.7%, the Coalition's modest target of 8% unemployment by the year 2000 is looking increasingly shaky.
Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that a quarter of all part-time workers would like to work more hours — the highest rate in the OECD. The National Institute of Labour Studies recently published estimates that the unemployment rate would reach 22.3% if discouraged job-seekers and the underemployed were counted in government figures.
Adding fuel to the fire, on September 25 Reserve Bank chief Ian Macfarlane stated that the government's industrial relations reforms, specifically presented by the Coalition as the basis upon which it would create jobs, would have "very little effect" on unemployment.
In response, economic analysts admitted that unemployment will not improve in the short term, but stressed that the increased productivity and increased economic growth promised by the reforms will benefit business and lead, in the long-term, to job growth. This is a lie. Howard's IR legislation, which will restrict awards (including unfair dismissal clauses) and weaken trade unions, will have an adverse impact on job security.
Virtually no jobs have been created in the last 11 months and on October 8, the ANZ bank's chief economist, Saul Eslake, told the Financial Review that unemployment could reach 9% by the beginning of 1997.
Already 15,000 public service jobs have been shed and another 15,000 are expected to go in the next 18 months. ABS data show a 17% drop in public service vacancies over the three months to September due to contracting out, and a study by ANZ shows a 14.4% drop in advertised job vacancies across the board over the last year.
Those jobs that are being created do not replace those being shed, in either quantity or quality. More than 70% of jobs created since the 1970s have been in the bottom 20% of earnings. In a revealing comment to the Sydney Morning Herald on September 26, labour market economist Professor Bob Gregory said that the reforms would lead to stronger jobs growth only if Australia developed a low-wage job market along US lines. Many US workers' wages are less than welfare payments.
The ALP has greeted higher unemployment with smug promises to target job insecurity as an election issue. In reality, the ALP is just as committed to economic restructuring. It began the process of deregulation, enterprise bargaining, and tying the unions closer to the interests of government and business.
The growth of unemployment is even more shocking in light of the figures on working hours. A recently released report commissioned by the Brotherhood of St Lawrence reveals that, in February, 37% of full-time workers averaged more than 49 hours per week. A decade ago the figure was 9%.
The average working week is now 42.6 hours, higher than anywhere in Europe outside of the UK, and overtime is growing in low paid sectors. As well, the number of workers holding down more than one job has doubled over the last decade to nearly 5%.
It is testament to the absurdity of the capitalist economic system that, while unemployment in Australia is increasing, the redistribution of all overtime worked in this country would create 500,000 new jobs.