More Tasks, Less Secure, Working Harder: Three Dimensions of Labour Utilisation

Abstract

In many industrialised countries, there have been major changes in the pattern of labour utilisation in the 1980s and 1990s. The paper argues that in Australia labour utilisation has been changing in three key dimensions: job broadening, employ ment insecurity and work intensification. These changes are affecting both standard 'core' workers and non-standard 'peripheral' workers. Reviewing case study evidence and survey data from a federal Australian government study of workplace change, we analyse employee perceptions of these fomrs of labour utilisation. Employees are being affected by differing combinations of these changes and are experiencing higher stress levels, greater job insecurity and lower levels of satisfaction with the work/family balance.