Competition and the growth of non-standard employment : the case of the Australian construction industry

Studies on globalisation suggest that a factor in the growth of nonstandard employment in developed economies has been the growing capacity of multinational corporations to arbitrage wage differentials across countries. This analysis applies in particular to industries subject to direct import competition such as commodities and manufactured goods or to non-personal services industries such as internet retail, call centres, engineering and computer consulting. Such analyses have little to say about industries not in these categories. This study focuses on the construction industry, which has experienced a growth of nonstandard employment greater than that for the economy as a whole but is neither subject to direct import competition nor in the non-personal service industry. The article suggests that a different mechanism associated with globalisation and intensifying competition is at work. This mechanism is associated with the increased reliance on private sources of funding for construction projects and, more importantly, the global nature of these funding sources in property trusts and superannuation funds.