Full-time jobs still the mainstay for most employees

Job seekers worried about the contraction in full-time jobs can take some comfort from a recently released study refuting ACTU claims that nine-to-five jobs have fallen victim to a proliferation of ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ jobs in the gig economy.

According to a whitepaper by Griffith University professor and labour economist David Peetz, predictions of the demise of traditional employment opportunities have been vastly exaggerated.

While Peetz acknowledges that some sectors like mining, cleaning, and the quick-service food industry are responsible for what he calls the ‘fissured workplace’  – aka bitsy – of franchising, labour hire and contractors, he reminds jobseekers that the workplace structure still relies more on permanent employment relationships.

Interestingly, despite media hype about the gig economy, Peetz research suggests that employees as a proportion of the workforce has jumped from 62 percent in the early 90s to 63.4 percent. Equally noteworthy are revelations by the OECD that self-employment actually fell between 2000 and 2014 by 3.3 percent.

Also putting paid to the notion that people drift from one job to another, the number of people changing jobs actually fell over the decade, from 11.5 percent in 2002 to 9.2 percent in 2013.