More women working in ‘precarious jobs’
More women are working in precarious jobs, leaving them more vulnerable to a sudden loss of income.
Official figures show that in the March quarter, the number of women in casual, fixed-term or temporary roles was up 4.4 per cent on a year earlier.
There was a 2.2 per cent drop in women in permanent roles. For men, there was a 4.4 per cent drop in those in less secure jobs, and only a slight 0.2 per cent decrease in those in permanent work.
Tineke Joustra, a population biologist and a mother of three, relies on picking up contract work, sometimes 20 to 30 hours a week. But she’d like something more secure – a permanent parttime job.
But permanent jobs she can fit around her children are hard to come by. ‘‘There are probably quite a few mums who feel the same way. We all want to work and we’ve got the skills to work. It just means that we have to find employers that are keen to actually take us on.’’
While unemployment hasn’t been anywhere near as bad as was feared in the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic, women have been hit hard.
Of the 11,000 people who lost their jobs in the June 2020 quarter, 90 per cent of them were women.
Council of Trade Unions secretary Melissa Ansell-Bridges said the industries worst affected by the pandemic were those which women were over-represented in, such as tourism, retail, accommodation and hospitality. While women were now getting back into work, it was in those more precarious casual, fixed-term or temporary jobs.
Infometrics senior economist Brad Olsen said it suggested a bit of uncertainty among employers. ‘‘There is this concern that although businesses are all right at the moment, they’re not as confident about the future.’’ AnsellBridges
suspects in the midst of the pandemic, women are taking whatever jobs they can find.
‘‘You’re more likely to take on the more casualised and precarious types of jobs, and there’s a real risk with that.’’
Olsen said it could also hurt women’s earnings. ‘‘People being in some more precarious work – fixed-term roles, temporary roles, casual roles – does diminish how much people might be able to advance into their careers and increase their earning potential, so concerns about the future earning outcomes for women across the employment market.’’
‘‘We all want to work and we’ve got the skills to work.’’
Tineke Joustra
Population biologist and mother of three