Casual truths: What do the data on casual employment really mean?

Abstract

We draw on mostly unpublished ABS data to address three related questions: (1) How can we approximate the number of genuinely flexible casual employees? (2) What are the characteristics of work where employees are, or are not, likely to be genuinely flexible casuals? and (3) How many employees are compensated for the disutility of casual employment? Only 6 per cent of leave-deprived workers (1.4% of all employees) are ‘narrowly-defined casuals’. The majority of leave-deprived workers have been with their employer for over a year. The majority expect to be with the same employer over a year into the future. Around half have stable hours from one week to the next and are not on standby. The characteristics of leave-deprived employees do not appear to be those of flexible, casual employment relationships. The common feature appears to be low power. Employers may have the ability to deploy them in all sorts of flexible ways, but often do not need to utilise that flexibility. The popular term ‘permanent casual’ is more accurately phrased as ‘permanently insecure’. The high rate of ‘casual’ employment enables Australia to have an internationally low level of leave coverage.