Contented Casuals in Inferior Jobs?: Reassessing Casual Employment in Australia

By Ian Watson

The increased number of casuals in the Australian workforce has generated considerable concern about a proliferation of inferior jobs in the labour market.

Critics of casualisation have pointed to poor outcomes associated with casual work: job insecurity, lack of training and career paths, marginalisation in the workplace, and so forth. Those who defend casualisation argue that non-standard employment provides greater choice within the labour market, and that casual employees are no less dissatisfied with their jobs than permanent employees. In this paper Watson reassesses this debate by examining a recent analysis of job satisfaction amongst casual employees by Wooden and Warren (Melbourne Institute Working

Paper 15/03 2003). He argues that findings of contentment among casual employees are subject to both methodological and philosophical weaknesses. In place of subjective measures of job satisfaction, He argues that the quality of jobs should be directly assessed by objective criteria like remuneration.

Following this, he fits earnings equations to the HILDA data and find that part-time casual employees earn only a modest premium over permanent full-time employees. When the loadings which casuals are paid are taken into account, he finds that part-time casual employees are actually penalised by virtue of working as casuals. Watson concludes that casual jobs are inferior jobs, irrespective of the satisfaction levels of their incumbents.

(Australian Centre for Industrial Relations Research and Training - ACIRRT. Working Paper no 94, September 2004)