10 thoughts on “Manifestation Part II”

  1. Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. First, employers these days hire and fire much more than they did twenty years ago, with the result that, whatever the overall state of the labour market, a given worker is more likely to be fired at some stage now than then. Second, the workforce is becoming polarised into two groups: those on individual contracts who are co-opted by the employers and paid well, but obliged to work long hours; and casuals and contracters, who are paid poorly, have limited rights, and are easily bullied. These developments together conspire against older workers: they are fired more often, and when this happens they find both of the new alternative forms of employment unattractive. So they join the ranks of the disguised unemployed.

    If this is right, I suppose the free marketeers will say it’s a distortion caused by the too-high replacement ratio. Lower the benfits, narrow the eligibility criteria, and the older workers will then accept pay and conditions commensurate with their productivity. But I gather you think it can be characterised as a market failure, arising from too much deregulation of the labour-market, rather than as a distortion.

    I wonder if you could state succinctly how this operates, or suggest a reference.

  2. Hi John

    I wanted to have a listen, but they only seem to offer it in RealPlayer format. Since RealPlayer is one of the most annoying programs ever – constantly bothering you to upgrade, buy, put in your details etc, I refuse to ever install it again.

    Shame, as I would have liked to have a listen. Perhaps you can use your influence to get the ABC to offer it in another format as well.

  3. PK, I agree in spades regarding RealPlayer. I’ll raise the issue if I get time.

  4. You have to ask the online mob at the ABC. For some reason they are averse to Quicktime; the Realplayer thing is probably bound up with the fact that they will have done a licensing deal that is as cheap as possible. So our frustration is not a decisive factor.

  5. James, that is a fascinating description because it neatly illustrates why laypeople like me find the free marketeers so disturbing. That first para – though you are using it to summarise John’s position – sums up my experience in the work force pretty well, as someone who moves between freelance and contract bureaucracy positions.

    Then you summarise the free marketeers thus: ” Lower the benfits, narrow the eligibility criteria, and the older workers will then accept pay and conditions commensurate with their productivity.” To me that is code for “exclude older workers from benefits, and force us to take what is out there.” But I don’t think the jobs thus offered are “commensurate with my productivity”, but reflect the extent to which I can be exploited. That is a combination of two things – that I can be made to work completely at the convenience of the enterprise (go home, there’s nothing for you today, I forgot to order the raw materials..) or to be made to contribute productivity for which I am not paid.

    I know I am making a sidebar remark, but the example is very stark.

  6. Here’s the message I sent to the producer

    I enjoyed doing the talk and it came out pretty well. I had one minor gripe, which I would have ignored except that the same point was raised independently by a couple of commenters on my weblog.

    The sound version of the talk is available on the ABC Website only in RealPlayer format. RealPlayer is a real pain – it’s hard to download the player without being harassed about paying for it and it seems to need upgrades every other week. If the site is going to have a single choice it should be Quicktime, but a better option would be to offer all three major formats. I can’t believe that this would be a huge effort compared to the cost of producing the content in the first place, including the time contributed by the ‘talent’.

    To take my case specifically, I’d charge a print publication somewhere between $200 and $500 for a piece like the one I presented, and I’m not happy to have its availability restricted because someone has decided to save a dollar on licensing or five minutes of work for the IT department.

    If you could pass this on to whoever is most likely to do something about it, I’d be very grateful.

  8. But contrary to myth employers don’t hire and fire more than they used to – the average tenure of jobs has hardly changed in the last thirty years. There have been, to my knowledge, at least three studies in the last decade which have found this (much, I might add, to the surprise of the researchers).

    what’s happened, of course, is that the average disguises movements in the composition of secure and insecure jobs. The public sector is still more secure than the private sector, and it has grown faster over the years. We used to have a very large and highly casualised rural workforce, which is now much smaller. OTOH, retail employment has both grown and become more casualised.

    My view is that indeed the problems of older workers are a result of fundamental labour market changes, but these are less to do with employer behaviour (they’ve always been greedy bastards) or even IR policy, than with wages and education policy (in the case of early 80s youth unemployment) or with industry change (in the case of the ‘lost generation’ of older unskilled workers). In both cases, the problem is essentially a ‘one off’ transition – future generations of older workers will be much better educated, f’rinstance.

    So I think that if you’re looking to future projections of employment for older workers, you do need to focus more on the labour supply than labour demand issues.

  9. But contrary to myth employers don’t hire and fire more than they used to – the average tenure of jobs has hardly changed in the last thirty years. There have been, to my knowledge, at least three studies in the last decade which have found this (much, I might add, to the surprise of the researchers).

    A (near-fatal, IMO) difficulty with these studies that’s crucial to the current debate is that “average tenure” is calculated for those who are currently employed. Someone who loses their job and remains unemployed or leaves the labour force isn’t counted at all.

    I don’t have an alternative measure to propose, but I am thinking about it.

  10. why not just survey people at random and ask them how long they held their last job for?

    seems pretty simple to me.

    (you can exclude people who have never had jobs etcetera depending on what youre trying to measure)

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