Blogs in this category will analyse trends in labour costs published by various statistical agencies

We are all entrepreneurs now marching towards a precarious and impoverished future

Some years ago, I was a panel speaker at an event in Sydney covering the topic of wage developments. I shared the podium with a young woman who was something like NSW Youth of the Year. It was at a time that employer groups were lobbying the conservative government to abandon penalty rates for workers in low-wage industries (hospitality, tourism, etc) and strip powers from trade unions. I spoke about how that agenda was designed to advance their class interests and fitted squarely with the neoliberal intent to redistribute real income away from workers towards profits. The young woman followed and announced that class was dead and that there was no such thing as a worker anymore – she said “we are all entrepreneurs now!”. Prior to that, as our national government was privatising our public companies such as Qantas and Telstra, our prime minister announced “we are all capitalists now” referring to the idiocy of people buying shares in the companies that we collectively ‘owned’ anyway while they were in public hands. The more recent manifestation of this delusion that class is dead and we are all entrepreneurs is the so-called ‘gig economy’. It seems that we now have millions of people (first young but increasingly older) who think that entrepreneurship is about buying a cheap scooter and tearing around streets delivering pizzas in all weather to earn a few dollars while the companies that ’employ’ them (or rather contract them) walk away with millions. These workers, sorry, entrepreneurs, face a bleak future. When there are no pizzas being ordered they have no shifts. When they are sick they have no pay. When they go on holidays they have no pay. And when they get old they will have no superannuation. Sounds like a plan to make someone rich.

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Australia’s low wage workers lose ground on gaining a ‘living wage’

On Thursday (May 30, 2019), Australia’s wage setting tribunal, the Fair Work Commission handed down its – Decision: Annual wage review – which saw the minimum wage rise by 3 per cent from July 1, 2019. The new minimum wage will be $740.80 per week or $19.49 per hour. Given that the annual inflation rate is running around 1.3 per cent (or thereabouts), the decision means that the real minimum wage is now higher than it was a year ago, which is a good sign. But over the last year, low-paid workers have had to endure cuts in pay rates for work during non-standard hours (so-called penalty rates), which Fair Work Australia made operational on July 1, 2017 and being phased in over a few years, with more pain to come. Given the conservatives won the federal election a few weeks ago, those penalty rate losses will not be restored. So the 3 per cent increase should be seen in that light. Our wage setting tribunal is giving with one hand and taking it back (and then some) with the other. The most sordid aspect of all this is that many employers demanded Fair Work Commission deliver real wage cuts in the annual review.

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Australian workers enjoy modest real wage rises

Last Wednesday (May 15, 2019), the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the latest- Wage Price Index, Australia – (March-quarter 2019). Private sector wages growth was 0.5 per cent in the March-quarter which remains a very low rate of growth. Over the year to March 2019, overall wages growth was 2.3 per cent and with the annual inflation rate running at 1.3 per cent, workers were able to enjoy some real wages growth. However, over the longer period, real wages growth is still running well behind the growth in labour productivity, which has allowed profits to secure a substantially increased share of national income.

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Reliance on household debt and a lazy corporate sector – a recipe for disaster

In yesterday’s blog post – Australian national accounts – growth continues but deep uncertainty looms (September 5, 2018), my theme was that the current period of economic growth in Australia was being built on what we might consider to be quicksand – increasing household debt and a run-down in household saving. Australia’s household saving ratio is now down to 1 per cent and falling, which is taking us back to the madness of pre-GFC. By any stretch this is an unsustainable growth path. Last Monday (September 3, 2018), the Australian Bureau of Statistics published their data series – Business Indicators, Australia, June 2018 and – Retail Trade, Australia, July 2018. The latter gives a more recent estimate of what the economy is doing, given the national accounts data that came out yesterday covers the period from April to June. Things are definitely not going in the right direction. The data shows that the benefits of growth are being disproportionately captured by profits and wages are lagging well behind. Overall, this is a recipe for disaster.

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CEO pay binge in Australia continues while workers’ wages growth remains flat

The headlines in the last week summarised the inherent inadequacy of capitalism for most of us who depend on real wages growth to enhance our material standard of living in economies that are growing. The latest report from the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors released on Thursday (July 17, 2018) – CEO Pay in ASX200 Companies: 2017 – shows how unfair and unsustainable the income distribution is in Australia. Australian CEOs were fully committed to the ‘greed is good’ binge leading up to the GFC along with their peers across the globe. The GFC interrupted that ‘party’, albeit temporarily. As the emergency environment that surrounded the business community during the GFC abated as a result of extensive government support (bailouts, stimulus packages, etc), the managerial class in Australia has returned attention to its on-going ‘national income grab’. The Report shows that in 2017, CEO pay reached its highest level in 17 years and the managerial class enjoyed real growth in pay at a time when the average worker is enduring either flat to negative growth in pay. Further, overall economic growth in Australia is being driven by increased non-government indebtedness as real wages growth (what there is of it) lags well behind productivity growth. And, at the same time, the Federal Government is intent on pursuing an austerity policy stance. All these trends are similar to the dynamics we experienced in the lead-up to the GFC. They are unsustainable. A major shift in income distribution away from capital towards workers has to occur before a sustainable future is achieved.

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New Labour Account framework in Australia provides new insights

The Australian Bureau of Statistics released a new labour market framework on Tuesday (July 10, 2018) – Labour Account Australia, Quarterly Experimental Estimates – which will improve statistical analysis and allow new conjectures to be examined against the evidence. This blog post is really an exploration on my behalf of this new dataset and I know it is rather dry. But that is part of my work and it has to be done to build an evidential basis for the claims I make about this and that. I am still exploring the framework and will obviously use it to advantage (hopefully) in the future but for now here are some of the compelling insights that emerge from it. The first obvious new insight we can gain is to divide total filled jobs (employment) into Main and Secondary jobs. This allows us to assess the quality of the change in overall employment. Up until now we have considered employment in terms of persons employed. But now we can work out how many persons are employed in more than one job and where those jobs are. It provides an excellent check on statements made by politicians etc about the number of jobs being created and their quality.

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Real resource constraints and fiscal policy design

There is an interesting dilemma currently emerging in Australia, which provides an excellent case study on how governments can use fiscal policy effectively and the problems that are likely to arise in that application. At present, the Australian states are engaging in an infrastructure building boom with several large (mostly public sector) projects underway involving improvements to road, ports, water supply, railways, airports and more. I travel a lot and in each of the major cities you see major areas sectioned off as tunnels are being dug and buildings erected. Not all of the projects are desirable (for example, the West Connex freeway project in Sydney has trampled on peoples’ rights) and several prioritise the motor car over public transport. But many of the projects will deliver much better public transport options in the future. On a national accounts level, these projects have helped GDP growth continue as household consumption has moderated and private investment has been consistently weak to negative. But, and this is the point, there have been sporadic reports recounting how Australia is running out of cement, hard rock and concrete and other building materials, which is pushing up costs. This is the real resource constraint that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) emphasises as the limits to government spending, rather than any concocted financial constraints. If there are indeed shortages of real resources that are essential to infrastructure development then that places a limit on how fast governments can build these public goods. The other point is that as these shortages are emerging, there is still over 15 per cent of our available labour resources that are being unused in one way or another – 714,600 are unemployed, 1,123.9 thousand are underemployed, and participation rates are down so hidden unemployment has risen. So that indicates there is a need for higher deficits while the infrastructure bottlenecks suggest spending constraints are emerging. That is the challenge. Come in policies like the Job Guarantee.

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Low-paid workers in Australia – give with one hand, take back with the other

It is a public holiday in Australia today. Would you believe it is the annual Queen’s Birthday holiday – the Queen of England that is. How Australia maintains this colonial relic is down to progressive forces being divided on rather irrelevant details and some of them siding with the monarchists. Tomorrow’s blog post will analyse the recent ECB behaviour with regard to Italian government bond purchases. But today I consider the minimum wage decision that was handed down on June 1, 2018, by Australia’s wage setting tribunal, Fair Work Australia in its – Annual Wage Review 2017-18. This is the process through the Federal Minimum Wage in Australia is adjusted. The decision announced will increase the minimum wage by 3.5 per cent from July 1, 2018 so that the new minimum wage will be $719.20 per week or $18.93 per hour. Given that the annual inflation rate is running around 2 per cent (or thereabouts), the decision, on the face of it, would suggest that the real minimum wage is now higher than it was a year ago, which is a good sign. But over the last year, low-paid workers have had to endure cuts in pay rates for work during non-standard hours (so-called penalty rates), which Fair Work Australia made operational on July 1, 2017. For some workers the losses from the penalty rate cuts amount to more than $6,000 per year. So our wage setting tribunal is giving with one hand and taking it back (and then some) with the other. The most sordid aspect of all this is that many employers demanded Fair Work Australia deliver real wage cuts in the annual review.

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Now people pay to work for free

I am back on my regular pattern which means there will be no detailed Wednesday blog – just some snippets if anything. This morning, I did a radio interview on the national broadcaster (ABC) about the growing spread of unpaid work experience. It was clear the interviewer thought that work experience was a good thing. I indicated that it was a creeping disease that has become part of the neoliberal agenda to erode the rights of workers. In Australia, this disease has morphed into a cost-shifting exercise where employers have pushed their responsibility to train their workforces onto the public education system and are now demanding payment from students to allow them to undertake so-called ‘work experience’. Increasingly, this practice is become built-into educational programs, which compromises the quality of the education. But while it is dressed up in mighty descriptions such as ‘preparing our youth for an exciting future’ it amounts to nothing more than unpaid work. The latest iteration is that now people pay to work for free. Our trade unions are largely silent on this scandal.

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Welcome to the ‘homeless’ working poor – a new neoliberal KPI

In advanced nations, poverty used to be a thing of old age, once income had stopped due to retirement and savings depleted. Old-aged pension systems were intended as Welfare States emerged to prevent that fall into poverty. The pension systems reduced the incidence of extreme poverty and the full employment era that followed the Second World War, where governments committed to using their fiscal capacities (spending and taxation) to ensure there were sufficient jobs for all, allowed workers to improve incomes and saving. Research in the early 1970s (particularly from the US, where the pension systems were less generous and working conditions less regulated) started to disclose the incidence of the ‘working poor’. In more recent times, the concept of the working poor has spread from the US to most advanced nations. In this modern era of renewed real wage repression, rising energy costs and housing costs, workers are not only facing increased risk of poverty but also of homelessness. Welcome to Australia – the nation with the second highest median wealth per adult in the world. Yesterday (February 21, 2018), the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released the – Wage Price Index, Australia – for the December-quarter 2017. Private sector wages growth was 1.9 per cent in the December-quarter continuing the seven consecutive quarters of record low growth. However, with the annual inflation rate running at 1.9 per cent, real wages growth was static. And with real wages growth lagging badly behind productivity growth, the wage share in national income is now around record low levels. This represents a major rip-off for workers. The flat wages trend is also intensifying the pre-crisis dynamics, which saw private sector credit rather than real wages drive growth in consumption spending. And now, the latest data shows that workers are experiencing increased homeless. It is not just a problem of the ‘working poor’ now. Welcome to the ‘homeless’ working poor – a new neoliberal KPI.

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