Col Rouge as the forum asks does high employment mean that we have to have high social inequality its reasonable to focus on the Australian labour market and accountancy is about the only area where passing examinations set in London are necessary for the Australian grading of Chartered Accountant. I can understand why you assume I have no social analysis credentials but actually your dead wrong!

I am pretty indiscriminate in my dislike of arrogant ethnic groups who look down on the older inhabitants whether they be ignorant poms or chattering Indian IT personnel who utter “query” “excel and “database” in the one sentence. No Australian from a top IT university would say that, but I do know accountants who think that’s reasonable.

I would like you to tell me why it is more efficient to have broken up the old SEC which by 1992 had a third the number of employees of 1988 and replace it with a power generating company, and 5 retail distribution companies, 2 of which are rewriting the billing software. You can’t tell me that there are any diseconomies of scale inherent in a market of 2 million customers? NB a third of electricity generated is lost when transmitted 200 kms. Although Kennett was slick about folding the SEC to avoid all the compensation payments to the 25% of LaTrobe Valley workers afflicted by mesothaeleoma.

Is it reasonable to expect contract teachers to draw unemployment benefits during school holidays because they have no income. Do you want your children taught by such vulnerable adults in such precarious financial situations? 10% to 30% of teachers are on contract and 10% are hired at $153 per day and $51 to the labour hire company.

I would like you to tell me why its fair to rear and educate our children to have 80% working crap jobs or no jobs burdened by HECS debt while we import untrained graduates for those entry level positions.

Are you prepared to support these displaced public servants on the dole? Do you expect they will displace other people further down?

billie: Hang on a second. I'm not sure where you're getting your figures about teachers working through agencies.

The rate for a CRT (Casual Relief Teacher -- a fully qualified teachers, not unqualified ring-in) in Victoria is a little over $200/day. The way this is basically worked out, I believe, is that a normal teacher's annual salary is divided by two hundred (ie. forty weeks of term times five days each week), as opposed to 365 (so that normal teachers get paid through the holidays too). That's my understanding of it anyway.

An agency typically takes between 10% and 20% of gross pay. After tax (which you're not including in your analysis, or which you're lumping in with the agency fee -- agencies will get, at most, $20 per day from each employee), if a CRT works a full week, he or she will indeed walk home with about $150/day, give or take, which is more than a full time teacher will get (to make up for holidays).

This arrangement may not suit some, who would indeed prefer steady work, especially during terms one and four. However, it suits many others (eg. people who need the flexibility to look after children or pursue other things), and you're also forgetting that there are twelve weeks of holidays in which to make other money if necessary. Furthermore, in some situations (eg. country schools), you don't have to go through agencies and once you get your foot in the door, you can get enough work. Finally, whilst a CRT has to put up with unruly kids, his or her day ends at the last bell. There are no reports, assessments, meetings, etc. This arrangement suits some also.

Ultimately though, if this arrangement doesn't work and the education system can't keep enough people within its ranks and instead loses them to private enterprise, then the education system will have to make it more attractive for them to stay. Market forces. It's that simple.

OK Shorbe, I was sloppy with my numbers I was counting the money in hand, not the gross.

Mythical high employment rates

From my perspective I see that Australia currently has high social inequality that is increasing and high levels of unemployment and underemployment. The unemployed and underemployed ainclude not only the unskilled, workers over 45 but also include university graduates in fields like engineering, IT, teachers trained at country universities. I we were talking about a small percentage of graduates it would be easy to dismiss them as the individual is unsuited to the position for which they trained but when its more 20% of the graduates then one must look at the whole system.

While Australia continues to define employment as 'one hour of paid or unpaid work in the survey period' then we are not going to take meaningful steps to increase employment rates and reduce social inequality.

Sadly we see that the Australian Census 2006 asks questions designed to perpetrate the myths of
* high employment, refer Question 34
* high community involvement in voluntary activity, Question 51
* nuclear family of dad, mum and the kids - a rare occurence in inner Melbourne, Question 6
* older Australians as a burden to society - questions only relate to study, work or need for care. In fact Australians leave work at 50 and die at 75 thus enjoying 13 years of good health before they start to heavily use the health care system in their last 2 years of life.

The OECD survey that recommends that Australia remove the award system also states that Australia has a lower workforce participation rate for workers over 55 than Scandanavian countries

billie: Many of these problems are self-inflicted in this country.

Firstly, great numbers of people expect to go to university now, whereas a generation or so ago, they simply wouldn't have gone to university but would have done something else. A lot of this isn't helped by outside factors (eg. government and business), but in a lot of cases, too many people end up with degrees for which there aren't enough jobs, but because they have those degrees, they won't do anything "beneath" them. There's a whole subset of jobs in our country that can't be filled, which is why guest workers (including backpackers) can't be brought in quickly enough.

Part of the problem is that the jobs aren't desirable jobs for the average Australian, often in terms of the pay. The trouble with this is that the average consumer wants, for example, cheap fruit, yet doesn't want to pay realistic prices to employee Australians to pick or pack it. It's the same principle behind why manufacturing is disappearing in this country. Sure, trade barriers are part of it, but the government shouldn't have to wave a big stick. I wonder how many people complaining about unemployment, manufacturing moving off shore, etc. in this country have bought a foreign product rather than an Australian made one because of the price, or are contributing to shortages of Australian labour in certain industries, even when there's unemployment here. We can't have our cake and eat it too in this country.

Labour hire is not just ofice staff every day labour hire workers go on to construction sites in jobs once paid at much higher rates.
Not rich mans wages just fair pay in an industy that casts of its workers at projects end.
Now such workers are often paid survival wages only and nothing exists at jobs end.
Please understand by no means is every employer a good boss, the reverse is quite often true.
And casual employment for some is knowing they can never own a home or live a normal life.

Yes Shorbe in previous generations 14 year olds used to start work as apprentices, labourers in factories etc.
But where have all the factory jobs gone?
How many electrical apprenticeships have been offered in Victoria in the last 10 years?
When nurses finish their university degrees how do they get their first job - through labour hire companies.
When Victorian teachers finish their degree how do they get their first job - quite a high proportion have to start as casuals?
How do you start in factory these days - as a casual

Which home loan lenders will loan money to casual employees?

Yes there is anecdotal evidence of plenty of work on the other side of the desert in Western Australia for taxi drivers and pizza hands in provincial towns, seasonal fruit pickers and meat packers.
Do these jobs pay well enough to cover the cost of relocation?
What are your job prospects at the end of the commodities boom?

To get nitpicking about the unemployment figures. How can the Australian unemployment rate be 4.8% when the most populous states have unemployment rates of 5.1%