Mass worker redundancies are a common feature associated with structural change in developed economies, particularly in the steel-manufacturing industry. Past research has highlighted the poor re-employment outcomes for older workers, with many exiting the labour force permanently and becoming dependent on social-security income. The research presented in this article uses a longitudinal and mixed-methods approach to understand the job-mobility experiences of redundant steel workers. These workers were displaced from BlueScope Steel's Port Kembla plant after the shutdown in 2011 of one of their remaining two blast furnaces. We document relatively optimistic outcomes, when compared to past research, by focusing on the post-redundancy outcomes for older workers. We highlight the roles of the mining boom and the job-search strategies and attitudes of displaced workers.
This paper explores the gendered impact of structural change in regional labour markets, and the implications for gender equality. While buffering, segmentation and substitution labour market hypotheses have been used in national and supra-national analyses of labour market inequality, their application has not been tested at the regional level. Examining three regions within Australia (the Latrobe and Geelong regions of Victoria and North Western region of Tasmania) that have experienced distinctive patterns of economic restructuring since 1996 the paper finds that while women's education and training has improved, the concentration of women in part-time work and female-dominated industries has resulted in limited change to their relative contribution to household income. The research suggests that the application of labour market hypotheses to regional labour markets provides an improved understanding of the impact of economic restructuring on gender equality.
This study canvasses employer, academic, and student perspectives on the barriers experienced by international students in gaining exposure to the Western Australian workplace through Work-integrated Learning (WIL). It explores international-student participation in work placements—one example of WIL offerings—as part of their university studies. WIL is highly regarded by international students who seek to gain local experience to improve their employment prospects; it is a key consideration for study destination. WIL also holds significant benefits for industry. These potential benefits include gaining cultural insight, linguistic expertise and, potentially, deepening existing collaborative global partnerships through the placement of participating international students. Findings indicate that a relatively low proportion of international students participate in WIL compared with domestic students. Implications of employer reluctance to engage with international students extend beyond individual employability and may affect international education’s status as one of Australia’s largest export industries. Stakeholder strategies to alleviate barriers to international students participating in WIL are discussed.
While considerable research on skills and training exists, less is known about employee perceptions of their skill development. This issue is particularly salient among the most highly educated members of the labour market, given the duration of their training. This study draws on survey data of almost four thousand PhD graduates in Australia. We explore perceived skill development and the importance of these skills among PhD graduates, and the factors that influence these perceptions. The findings reveal a number of factors that explain skill development and skill importance including age, gender, and career destination (for example higher education or industry). Perceived skill importance also depends on discipline area, organisation size, occupation, and sector. We conclude that the most highly educated members of the labour market do not always consider that they obtain the requisite skills during their PhD training; greater attention is needed to ensure that skills are better matched to career decisions and to the demands of high-level professions.
Non-resident workforces experience high labour turnover, which has an impact on organisational operations and affects worker satisfaction and, in turn, partners’ ability to cope with work-related absences. Research suggests that partner satisfaction may be increased by providing a range of support services, which include professional, practical, and social support. A search was conducted to identify support available for resources and health-industry non-resident workers. These were compared to the supports available to families of deployed defence personnel. They were used to compare and contrast the spread available for each industry. The resources industry primarily provided social support, and lacked an inclusion of professional and practical supports. Health-professional support services were largely directed towards extended locum support, rather than to Fly-In Fly-Out workers. Improving sources of support which parallel support provided to the Australian Defence Force is suggested as a way to increase partner satisfaction. The implications are to understand the level of uptake, perceived importance, and utilisation of such support services.
The resource sector in northern Western Australia draws its workforce from local purpose-built towns (drive-in/drive-out (DIDO) workers) and metropolitan areas (fly-in/fly-out (FIFO) workers). However, each of these arrangements has a downside. Mining towns are costly to build and maintain. Staff turnover is high. FIFO lifestyles adopted by city-based tradesmen seeking high incomes can lead to social dysfunction. Hence, the question: is there a viable alternative in these regional and remote areas for local communities to provide workers and ancillary support for the resource sector? For example most of the inland mines in Western Australia are located near or within Aboriginal communities. Returning to these communities are ex-prisoners who have had the opportunity to gain trade skills while in metropolitan prisons. This article considers whether Aboriginal ex-prisoners might be gainfully employed in the resource sector in the Pilbara and Kimberley regions of Western Australia.
This article explores the effect of apprenticeship training on productivity in the Australian construction industry. Using state-level data, the correlation between the level of training and productivity is analysed. The results are then used to build on anecdotal evidence to suggest a firm, pre-existing, positive relationship between training and productivity. In addition, the level of apprenticeship training in Australia is related to the composition and general characteristics of the Australian construction industry.
This article explores how the process of collective workplace bargaining has an impact on employees' psychological contracts in the Australian Public Service. Based on two case studies from the 2011 bargaining round, the researchers identify the bargaining parties' expectations, perceptions of whether or not the negotiations were based on trust and fairness, and whether employees considered that their employer had reneged on the deal. It is found that the bargaining process can reinforce employees' collective and individual sense of a breach of their psychological contract based on their perceptions that the employer is not delivering their side of deal, but expects ever-increasing employee contributions in a tighter fiscal environment. The article concludes that an emphasis on communication, procedural fairness, and maintaining employee trust can, nevertheless, repair and even sustain the relational elements of psychological contracts.
The global financial crisis led many older workers to delay retirement or to re-enter the workforce (O'Loughlin, Humpel and Kendig 2010). This has resulted in an increase in age diversity within organisations. This age diversity leads to improved creativity (Crampton and Hodge 2007) and improved productivity (Ilmakunnas and Ilmakunnas 2011). However, for human resource management professionals, age diversity can be challenging. Research comparing younger and older workers' intentions to stay is limited; this study continues that inquiry. To investigate intentions, a cross-sectional questionnaire was distributed to 2118 employees in the aged-care sector; 359 useable questionnaires were analysed. Results revealed similarities and differences between younger and older workers' intentions to stay. Variables such as perceived organisational support (POS), perceived supervisor support (PSS), and job embeddedness are analysed.
In the Western Australian mining sector, a significant portion of the workforce (at least 50 per cent) is employed in fly-in fly-out (FIFO) arrangements. This involves flying to isolated mining sites and working consecutive days usually for 11 or 12 hour shifts and returning home after a period of time (days or weeks). Such employment presents unique stresses on employees and at the same time offers significant opportunities such as high pay levels. During a decade of substantial growth in the industry, high levels of employee turnover have been experienced. This article examines the individual and organisational factors which contribute to this turnover. A questionnaire was used to measure employee views about their job and company, along with their intentions to stay or quit their job. This was administered in an iron-ore company with FIFO work arrangements. Findings show both organisational factors (rosters, supervisors, managers, and company culture) and personal factors (career goals and family circumstances) can influence turnover intentions.
"The increasing use of casual university academics has been an issue of concern to researchers and commentators for some time. Research to date has tended to focus on the plight of casuals who aspire to permanent positions, and emphasising issues such as career dissatisfaction, exploitation, and marginalisation. Little evidence has been gathered that quantifies the views of casuals more broadly. Less still has been gathered on the perceptions of the immediate supervisors of casuals. This article seeks to compare the perceptions of a cohort of casuals and their immediate supervisors. Both quantitative and qualitative data are gathered via a survey of academic staff employed in the business faculty of a large metropolitan university. The survey results indicate, among other things, a high level of mutual satisfaction between casuals and their immediate supervisors. Casuals also expressed a high level of general satisfaction with their work as casual staff. These and other findings are discussed in some detail."
The theme of fly-in fly-out (FIFO) employment arrangements has attracted considerable policy and media interest, yet there is limited knowledge about the impact of such employment on workers and how they might manage the various strains associated with FIFO work. To advance this line of research, this article examines the antecedent factors of and relationships between adjustment, well-being, and help-seeking among FIFO employees. Our primary contribution is to develop a model and a series of propositions which will assist researchers, the industry, and policy-makers to understand the complex circumstances and impacts of FIFO employment better.
This special edition of the Australian Bulletin of Labour is concerned with the recent and much-hyped phenomenon of Fly-In Fly-Out (FIFO) workers. We stress that our focus is on FIFO, not on the related question of work and employment in the resources sector, or on the broader impact of the resources sector on the regions and communities where it is located. There have been recent special editions of other journals on these matters: one assessing the impact of the Australian resources sector on rural societies (Rural Society 22, 2 2013) and another examining the dynamics and pattern of development in the Pilbara (Australian Geographer 44, 3 2013), as well as an inquiry—reported in 2013—undertaken by the Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia (FHRE 2013).
The impact of the fly-in fly-out (FIFO) lifestyle on the psychosocial and emotional well-being of the workers and their families has been a topic of discussion in local media, forums, and research, with mixed findings. In addition, there are reports that the communities that carry the increased presence of non-resident workers suffer erosion of social, human, economic, institutional,and environmental capital. This study outlines the positive effects of a FIFO lifestyle and discusses the results from a survey conducted by the authors on North Queensland FIFO workers. In particular, the demography of the FIFO workforce in North Queensland, workers' perceptions of FIFO work, and their perceptions of the impacts on social interaction for FIFO workers. The article closes with a brief outline of future research areas.
In this article we examine the case for the portability of long service leave (LSL) entitlements. Proliferating flexibility in employment arrangements increasingly leaves workers without coverage of employment provisions based on tenure with a single employer. An historical analysis of developments in LSL in Australia, including implementation of portable schemes in particular industries, and an analysis of labour-market trends are undertaken. We argue that the restriction of LSL to long-term employment with a single employer is anachronistic in the modern labour market. Nevertheless, LSL remains an important entitlement in the context of the contemporary labour market - perhaps more so than previously - even if the arguments in support of LSL have generally shifted in emphasis as a result of changes in the labour market. We conclude that a general entitlement to portable leave would deal with current inequities with respect to access to LSL. It would particularly assist in reconciling employers' demands for flexibility with employees' demands for protection.
This article reports on findings from an exploratory study which examined the qualifications, skills, and experience of local job seekers in Tropical North Queensland to ascertain their potential as FIFO workers. An online survey was conducted, eliciting 213 responses from potential FIFO workers, identifying their interest in, capacity, and capability to undertake FIFO work. The majority of respondents indicated that not only were they interested in FIFO work, but that they constituted an untapped talent pool of potential FIFO workers with substantial experience and (or) limited qualifications. The results indicated that this supply of potential FIFO labour, with some up skilling, could go a long way in contributing to the growing demand for skilled labour in the resource sector. The interest of these potential workers has implications for the mining industry, government departments, employment agencies, communities, and labour markets.
The focus in this article is how the extensive use of fly-in fly-out (FIFO) working arrangements in the Western Australian resources sector has an impact directly and indirectly on smaller firms and their ability to recruit workers in remote locations. We argue that the growth of FIFO working arrangements has disadvantaged smaller resource-sector firms by increasing their employment costs and decreasing their ability to attract skilled workers. As a result, smaller resource-sector firms are recruiting skilled workers on 457 visas to secure their business stability and growth, despite the complexity, costs, and risks involved.
In this introductory article, we provide a context for subsequent articles in this special edition. We do not intend to provide a comprehensive overview of the costs and benefits of FIFO. This ground is covered in other articles here (see also Morris 2012). We argue that FIFO represents the third wave in a series of spatial fixes, whereby resource companies mining in far north Western Australia sought to manage relationships between themselves, their workforces, and the communities in which these workers live. We are responding to the demands of Coe (2013) and Kelly (2013) who wish to see Global Production Network analysis move beyond a narrow workplace focus to incorporate issues such as environmental landscapes, households and livelihoods, and social and spatial unevenness of development. In so doing, we develop the form of analysis of GPNs, labour, and uneven development outlined in Rainnie et al. (2011; 2013).
In common with ongoing research into human resource management (HRM), there are attributes of jobs that are associated with job quality, which are considered important in attracting and retaining employees. To date, however, analysis has omitted the fly-in fly-out (FIFO) workforce. It is important to consider whether it is possible to develop a strategic HRM approach for FIFO workers where commuting arrangements deviate from the norm. This article fills a gap in the literature by using a four-dimensional job-quality(JQ) framework to analyse factors associated with job quality and HRM. There search was undertaken at two FIFO-dependent workplaces in Western Australia. The findings show that one workplace was using bundles of HR practices that spanned all four JQ dimensions; the other concentrated mainly on two dimensions, a consequence which is the potential to lead to suboptimal outcomes for the organisation and their FIFO employees.
This article examines the industry composition of employment across Statistical Divisions in Australia utilising census data from 2001 and 2006. We find some evidence to support the hypothesis that peripheral regions tend to have a higher level of employment specialisation than metropolitan centres, but there is little indication that employment specialisation, in general, grew over the period. From a policy perspective, we provide support for the findings of previous Australian researchers that higher levels of employment specialisation are associated with better labour market outcomes in a region, and that when policymakers assess different regional-development policies, they should give some consideration as to whether or not the implementation of their preferred policy will have an impact upon employment specialisation in the particular region.
