Part-time or contingent employment : the Australian experience, 1994-2014

This paper looks at part-time or contingent employment in the Australian economy. First it conducts an historical review of Australia’s economic performance in which the worst effects of the global financial crisis (GFC) were avoided. For example, since the onset of the GFC, Australia has only experienced two quarters without economic growth out of 24. Indeed, as the data for the last two decades indicate, Australia has experienced reasonable economic growth during most of this period. Over the same period, the Australian labour force (similar to many other developed economies) has seen a fundamental change with the rise of part-time or so-called contingent employment. After conducting a literature review to determine the main issues concerning contingent employment, the paper then uses statistical time series compiled by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to determine the impact that increasing use of contingent employees has had on economic performance. The paper concludes that contingent employees, or the introduction of more flexibility into the Australian labour market, cannot be seen as merely a response to economic downturns. Moreover, looking at the Australian experience, use of contingent employees represents a fundamental shift in the way organisations employ people and to some extent has been accepted by the broader society, even though there are social disadvantages attached to contingent employment as an acceptable form of employment. That is, contingent employment represents a fundamental shift in the way many people now work in Australia and is not merely an economic aberration.