Growing number of Australian males worried about job security — Study

CANBERRA: Australian males are increasingly worried about losing their jobs, a study has found, China’s Xinhua News Agency reported.

The report, published by Curtin University, found that “precarious work” was on the rise in Australia.

Precarious work is nonstandard employment that is poorly paid, insecure and unprotected.

Traditionally women are more likely to be precarious workers but the study found men were catching up.

Co-author of the report, Alan Duncan said there were a number of reasons that men felt less secure in their jobs.

“Fewer hours available, especially for men,” Duncan told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) yesterday.

“The increasing push towards part-time work and casualization, the greater use of independent contractors by businesses, which lends itself ... to a greater degree of insecurity in employment.”

Duncan said the fall of job security was particularly prominent among laborers, going as far as to suggest that males should look for work in the services sector, roles generally dominated by women.

“I think roles in the healthcare sector, in education, care services, either aged care, childcare,” he said.

“All of these roles I think will offer great opportunities for careers into the future and for career progression.”

The report also studied whether male workers believed they had more right to a job than women, a notion that was dismissed by 90 percent of the subjects.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 729,500 Australian adults do not have a job, giving the country an unemployment rate of 5.5 per cent.

More than 12.4 million adults are employed, 8.5 million on a full-time basis. — Bernama