# Casualization of the workforce



## Wellsy (Oct 24, 2011)

> *Casualization*
> 
> 
> the transformation of a workforce from one employed chiefly on permanent contracts to one engaged on a short-term temporary basis.




http://apo.org.au/files/Resource/syduni_rise-of-casual-work_2005.pdf


> Casualisation has two main meanings. It is often used loosely in the internationalliterature to refer to the spread of bad conditions of work such as employmentinsecurity, irregular hours, intermittent employment, low wages and an absence ofstandard employment benefits (eg Basso, 2003). In Australia, it has a slightlynarrower but more solid meaning. Because our labour markets contain a prominentform of employment that has been given a label of ‘casual’, casualisation in theAustralian literature usually refers to a process whereby more and more of theworkforce is employed in these ‘casual’ jobs.


Is this something of concern in your own country? Is it something of concern to you personally?
What has your experience been in regards to casual work? How do you see the shape of labor and employment taking these days? Do you view casual work as a stepping stone that students take before full time work or do you think it's become a integral part of getting labor in modern day workforce?


- https://theconversation.com/labour-...presents-a-precarious-future-for-workers-8181
-http://www.melbourneinstitute.com/d...hy/student_essays_dissertations/s_buchler.pdf


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## EndsOfTheEarth (Mar 14, 2015)

Wellsy said:


> Is it something of concern to you personally?
> What has your experience been in regards to casual work? How do you see the shape of labor and employment taking these days? Do you view casual work as a stepping stone that students take before full time work or do you think it's become a integral part of getting labor in modern day workforce?


In my industry it's happened a lot. Personally I think any company will do this where they can easily replace the casuals or the instability of people coming and going won't negatively impact the business more than the cost of having permanent employees would. It's a way around the labour laws for many people facing jobs which aren't considered to be high productivity jobs anyway. 

I worked full-time hours on the basis of being a casual for about a year. It was the only type of work going in hospitality. To be honest it's not a great way to be employed unless you need the flexibility to adjust your hours on short notice to suit yourself. Many companies are now using casual as a try before you buy scheme to evaluate an employees work before offering them a permanent position due to the difficulty in firing a bad employee. 

I think it's probably the way many jobs will go now and I don't think that's a great trend. It's the main reason why I have decided to become self-employed again.


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## Kyusaku (Mar 18, 2014)

Wellsy said:


> [/FONT]
> [/LIST]
> [/FONT]http://apo.org.au/files/Resource/syduni_rise-of-casual-work_2005.pdf
> 
> ...


In France casualization of the workforce is a result of the short term solutions the various governments have taken in order to fight unemployment. A lot of meaningless jobs are created that are sustained only through state fundings, with temporary contracts that only last for a year or two. Politicians only care about winning elections, and as long as they can lower the unemployment rate even temporarily they can brag about being effective, being a force of "change". They also lower taxes for small companies if they hire, and give them various advantages, but that doesn't make them profitable all of a sudden, they artificially create conditions that favor employment. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, in reality the employment market is changing drastically from a productivity oriented market to a creative, tertiary market. The times where you entered a company and stayed until retirement are over, now the workforce as to be flexible and adapt to the rapid pace of change, going from one company to the next, from one domain to another.


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## SalvinaZerelda (Aug 26, 2010)

I've been complaining about this for years, and people won't listen. I think they think I'm nuts.
"That's outside the norm, Rune!"

Where I live, almost all jobs seem to be unstable or hazardous. Employers don't care about their employees, and they always wave that "the customer's always right" bullshit around.
If you look at it more closely, the truth is that this is a lazy ass way to do business. They are willing to treat their employees like shit and people don't want to stick to one job anymore. EVERYONE IS GRUMPY.

It seems like the safest bet to finding a job that isn't totally psychologically or physically exhausting is to work for small businesses, make sure they are people with character and integrity, or find the few big chains that promote better ways of treating their employees.

or maybe there needs to be a bigger, better union for employees that are being mistreated in the workplace. People need to know that they deserve better and that there is a way to file complaints and know that justice will be served..


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## AriesLilith (Jan 6, 2013)

I'm from Portugal and work as a programmer. IT is a field where specialists are lacking, so there is employment everywhere and we are luckier with the job conditions we can get. Thought I've realized that permanent contracts in other jobs seems to be less and less. I've heard that according to the law, an employer can elaborate a maximum of 3 short contracts (of 1 year each) and then they must do the permanent contract, so that is what many employers tend to do. But even worse than that is the existence of outsourcing and temporary jobs companies - what they do is to hire people and then place them in their clients temporarily so that the clients don't have to hire them permanently. Imagine a call center getting its people from these companies and dispose them any time without worrying with paying them more for firing them.

Now imagine what it's like for those who have a hard time getting a job, and then they can't even find a stable job. Not only it can cause some stress and anxiety, but also a hard time to get loan for buying a house or a car for example. Coz banks tend to see people with lack of good income and stable jobs as riskier.

At best, having to change work place every now and then would also make it harder for people to bond with others. I'm used to switch projects every now and then and that means working in different teams and offices, which often means forming friendships just to move to somewhere else. In many places we can't even have a fixed and personalized desk, which feels a bit cold at times.

Thought even if being in IT people usually has permanent contracts, we tend to change jobs every few years as that is the only way to increase income. Some people tend to stay longer if their work environment and teams are more stable, but people from consulting companies that requires changing projects more often might change jobs easier as there is less emotional attachment.


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## WickerDeer (Aug 1, 2012)

Yes. I think that with the decline of the labor unions in the US, it's only gotten worse. Even the places that have the possibility of good compensation often hire part time workers who do not receive the full-time benefits, to compete with the poor conditions that some of the giants profit from.


I saw something like this happen with my mother's old job at Longs Drugs. When they were bought, the first thing the company did was to get rid of all the seasoned workers and replace some of them with young, part-time workers that they could pay less. They had the employees watch an anti-union training video like one of the above.

One old customer complained about the service since the store was stripped of employees, and so the management fired the pharmacist who had been working there for years as a response, though she thought she was complaining on his behalf, to get them to re-hire some of the help.

As they get rid of trusted and loyal employees for cheaper, less experienced ones, they increase security measures artificially with cameras and crap--and make people participate in hypocritical ethics training courses. Or they even screen with personality tests. It is frustrating, because I see the drop in employee moral and ethics as a result of the destruction of the concept of company loyalty by these large employers. 


Here are some anti-union training videos that employers show new employees:


* *


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## Wellsy (Oct 24, 2011)

Meltedsorbet said:


> * *


I watched to 3:06 of the walmart one, kind of hard to watch with how cringe worthy it is, i'll just leave an express fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu to those videos, holy hell.


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## bender477 (Aug 23, 2010)

InSolitude said:


> due to the difficulty in firing a bad employee.


not where I live. a lot of the retail places I've been in tend to go thru employees like sand thru fingers. I can only assume this casualization is just a flimsy excuse for companies to take no responsibility for the people they're hiring (ie benefits).

usually it's the worst jobs which had the most turnover: the less they pay you the more they treat you like so much human detritus. hard to believe this is necessary from a business PoV.


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## angelfish (Feb 17, 2011)

Yeah, where I am I think this is happening mainly as companies try to avoid the need to provide benefits to employees. 

Maybe it's just because I'm an idealistic INFP, but I can't help but feel like trying to evade providing basic life necessities and undercutting people's stability is not a good way to run anything. Businesses _can_ be successful without being unethical...


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## Coburn (Sep 3, 2010)

I have no statistical evidence for this on hand, but I have observed that contractors are becoming more normal than full-time employee positions.

I've talked with some recruiters and company owners about this trend. The short of it is that it's a LOT more cost effective (in the US) for larger companies (not small businesses, usually). You're not stuck with an extensive training period to make a contractor job-qualified, you don't have to pay out benefits, and you're not stuck with another body on payroll in between major projects.

I think it's pretty telling how much companies must be saving if their contract positions offer incredibly generous hourly rates.


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## Arzazar Szubrasznikarazar (Apr 9, 2015)

It's quite horrifying. The world is becoming completely anti-human. Constant terror. It's unbearable. I think that people should start randomly shooting up workplaces to discourage such practices.


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## Angelic Gardevoir (Oct 7, 2010)

Meltedsorbet said:


> * *


"Unions are just businesses that want your money!"
:rolling:


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## bender477 (Aug 23, 2010)

Pilot said:


> if their contract positions offer incredibly generous hourly rates.


which contract positions are these?

eventually we're all going to wise up and found our own businesses and put those fuckers on the street. excuse my language. too many holes in the current scheme of things: when college costs more than a small house, you're missing out on a lot of talent.


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## Coburn (Sep 3, 2010)

bender477 said:


> which contract positions are these?


Pretty much every single contract position I've ever seen come across my desk and the desk of my friends. The going rate is usually higher than the market rate for a full time job requiring the same skill set. 

The hitch to the high rate is that you have to pay for all your own health/retirement plans. Also, contract usually means >1 year. So yes, the salary is higher than what a full time employee in the same position might get, but they aren't committed to paying it long term.


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## saxol (Aug 20, 2015)

It's a bad trend for the workforce. I want the 1950's back please. Employers aren't always at fault however, in this day you have to keep in the black at whatever cost and making long term commitments with employees, or long term benefits, can be risky and difficult. Small businesses in particular.


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## Metalize (Dec 18, 2014)

Rather than protest working conditions, or rather in parallel with it, we should be examining the true root of the issue. Why is there a casualization of the workforce? Why are there not enough jobs? If it's because too much of the wealth/factories is concentrated in the hands of a few when there are increasingly many human beings on the planet, what would the appropriate social solution to disperse the wealth more evenly? It could be a whole new social setup like Communism (which I don't support), or it could be simply widespread social initiatives to encourage more startups/small companies/mom and pop businesses, which seems to actually circle back to pre-Industrial Revolution types of labor specialization/economy/working. Or if it is the case that more work is simply being automated, then we need initiatives to train people, from young ages, how to operate, manage, and work with these technical systems. And so on. It's not quite enough to note the trend and show anger, and as someone mentioned, employers aren't always at fault (though it's true that many abuse their power).


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## bigstupidgrin (Sep 26, 2014)

All of my white-collar office jobs were "At-will", which means you can get fired for pretty much anything. They were also probationary, so job security might as well be like the visualization of TS. 

I got hired one time because the company would get a tax-break (I was laid off and out of work for a long time). I stayed on for two months. They hired two people for the same job, BTW. Eventually I got fired because they didn't need me anymore. I wasn't on long enough to go on unemployment, either. 

So I'm pretty happy that my new career path involves unions.


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## Tao Te Ching (May 3, 2013)

Arzazar Szubrasznikarazar said:


> It's quite horrifying. The world is becoming completely anti-human. Constant terror. It's unbearable. I think that people should start randomly shooting up workplaces to discourage such practices.


dark


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## Arzazar Szubrasznikarazar (Apr 9, 2015)

Metasentient said:


> Rather than protest working conditions, or rather in parallel with it, we should be examining the true root of the issue. Why is there a casualization of the workforce? Why are there not enough jobs? If it's because too much of the wealth/factories is concentrated in the hands of a few when there are increasingly many human beings on the planet, what would the appropriate social solution to disperse the wealth more evenly? It could be a whole new social setup like Communism (which I don't support), or it could be simply widespread social initiatives to encourage more startups/small companies/mom and pop businesses, which seems to actually circle back to pre-Industrial Revolution types of labor specialization/economy/working. Or if it is the case that more work is simply being automated, then we need initiatives to train people, from young ages, how to operate, manage, and work with these technical systems. And so on. It's not quite enough to note the trend and show anger, and as someone mentioned, employers aren't always at fault (though it's true that many abuse their power).


The logical consequence of more work getting automated is either very short work hours with a good wage or not working at all and just consuming. But no, everything has to be done illogically and massive increase of productivity is supposed to lead to overworking and abusing the few remaining workers and starving the rest.

The point of automation is that less people are required to operate stuff. So, there isn't going to be more automation jobs. Just fewer jobs involving automation. And with shrinking customer base due people being eliminated by automation, everything is going to shit.

The only way to somehow salvage the situation is to use automation with a goal of creating a new age of common prosperity, instead of just cutting costs.


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## Arzazar Szubrasznikarazar (Apr 9, 2015)

Tao Te Ching said:


> dark


We're living in dark times.


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## Tao Te Ching (May 3, 2013)

Arzazar Szubrasznikarazar said:


> We're living in dark times.


maybe


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## Not that guy (Feb 26, 2015)

OK, here is the deal. We will create various mechanisms that funnel the wealth of the society to me. Why me? Good question, because Jebus, Ronald Reagan and cowboys is why. Then you will assume the position while I trickle down on you.

"But I'm not into water sports, why would I want to be trickled down on" you might ask? Well if you have to ask then you are a communist. A filthy godless communist who has unnatural relations with poultry.


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## EndsOfTheEarth (Mar 14, 2015)

Metasentient said:


> Rather than protest working conditions, or rather in parallel with it, we should be examining the true root of the issue. Why is there a casualization of the workforce? Why are there not enough jobs? If it's because too much of the wealth/factories is concentrated in the hands of a few when there are increasingly many human beings on the planet, what would the appropriate social solution to disperse the wealth more evenly? It could be a whole new social setup like Communism (which I don't support), or it could be simply widespread social initiatives to encourage more startups/small companies/mom and pop businesses, which seems to actually circle back to pre-Industrial Revolution types of labor specialization/economy/working. Or if it is the case that more work is simply being automated, then we need initiatives to train people, from young ages, how to operate, manage, and work with these technical systems. And so on. It's not quite enough to note the trend and show anger, and as someone mentioned, employers aren't always at fault (though it's true that many abuse their power).


In all honesty. I think we are at the end of the industrial age. Productivity gains have gotten so high that an entire bank branch now exists in a single ATM, for example. That's the extent of change for many businesses. I'm not sitting around and waiting for a union to save me, immigration to be cut or for the law to force companies to have permanent employees. It's like clinging to flotsam in a sea of change. I'm pretty much of the opinion that I'd better hurry up and become my own employer. The old paradigm of specialisations lead to longterm employment is basically dead. Every year the ranks of corporates get smaller and smaller, that's a trend I don't see reversing.


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