February Employment Market Update

Closing Loopholes 

A helpful visual - workplace relations changes timeline

Fair Work Act changes 

Casual employment and ‘employee-like’ contractors:

• The definition of a casual employee now must consider not just the contracted arrangement, but also the practical reality of the employment relationship.
• Casual employees will have the right to make a request to change their employment status. This removes the current onus on employers to proactively review, assess and provide written offers of conversion to eligible casual employees on their 12 month anniversary.
• A restricted defence to sham contracting will be introduced, including a ‘reasonable belief’ test that the individual was a contractor (rather than an employee). It will also be a civil remedy offence to misrepresent employment as casual.
• Employee-like workers (gig economy workers on digital platforms) will be able to access certain employment protections and provisions.

These changes will come into effect six months after Royal Assent.

Employees will have the right to refuse unreasonable contact outside of working hours, and a right to apply to the Fair Work Commission (FWC) for an order stopping the unreasonable behaviour. A range of factors as to whether that contact is reasonable is contained in the Act, with similar considerations around public holiday refusals and requests. This change will come into effect six months after Royal Assent.

Employees, unions and host employers can apply to the FWC for orders relating to labour-hire employees. When an order applies, labour-hire employees working for a particular host employer must be paid the same rate of pay they would receive under that employer’s enterprise agreement (or other relevant workplace instrument), subject to certain rules. This change came into effect on 15 December 2023. However, regulated labour-hire arrangement orders cannot come into force until 1 November 2024.

Stronger protections against discrimination for employees experiencing family and domestic violence have been introduced. This change came into effect on 15 December 2023.

A non-small business employer can become a small business employer due to insolvency in the period leading up to (or after) becoming bankrupt or going into liquidation. Under the new legislation, employers that become a small business employer in these circumstances may still be required to pay their employees redundancy pay, even though small businesses are usually not required to pay redundancy pay. A small business employer is an employer with less than 15 employees at a particular time. This change came into effect on 15 December 2023.

Workplace delegates now have new rights and protections under the Act. This includes the right to represent the industrial interests of union members and potential members. This change came into effect on 15 December 2023.

A Voluntary Small Business Wage Compliance Code (Voluntary Code) will be established. Compliance with the Voluntary Code means a small business won’t be criminally prosecuted if they underpay their employees. The offence will commence on the later of 1 January 2025, or the day after the Voluntary Small Business Wage Compliance Code is first declared by the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations.

IN OTHER MARKET NEWS…

Gender pay gap revealed

In February the Workplace Gender Equality Agency unveiled their latest pay gap data, which showed that Australia's total remuneration average gender pay gap is 21.7%. They also revealed the Data Explorer which allows users to search for and select the break down of the gap data by industry, employer size and by individual employers. Some interesting data observed includes:

• Industries with the highest salaries had the largest pay gap
• A gap of +/- 5% is considered 'neutral', with employers in Health Care, Social Services and Education most represented in this category
• The presence of women in leadership roles correlates strongly with a reduced gender pay gap, even when the salary of the leadership roles is not included in the calculation

Check out the Employer Gender Pay Gaps Interactive data tool for more insights

Dixon's total remuneration pay gap is -3.4%.

Got a pay gap challenge to address? See our tips on addressing the gender pay gap here.

Unemployment expected to creep up

The softening of the labour market looks set to continue with Treasury’s latest Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook suggests that the unemployment rate will edge up further in the period ahead, to 4.25% in the June quarter 2024.

Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics confirmed that while overall employment saw a modest increase, full time employment has decreased slightly in the last quarter of 2023, with the data suggesting the decrease represented a fall in the employment of full time females only, while male full time employment actually increased modestly. 

Part time employment rates increased by 2.2%, resulting in both the underemployment rate and unemployment rates increasing.

Hiring in Australian capital cities has decreased by 9 percentage points over the last 12 months, a trend that is not reflected in regional areas where the recruitment activity has seen a modest increase of 3 percentage points over the same time frame. 

Advertised vacancies receiving more applications

Jobs and Skills Australia’s Survey of Employers who have recently advertised showed a continued increase in the number of applications received by employers per job. This should be good news, however, the proportion of suitable applicants only saw a modest increase to 2.7 applicants per role, meaning that the increased traffic has not resulted in a significantly stronger talent pool to choose from.

Ambitious Universities Accord promises a better, fairer system

As reported by University World News, the education ministry has finally unveiled its proposals for revamping Australia’s higher education system in the coming decade, which include an array of recommendations on student fees, well-being, funding, teaching, research and university governance – and the creation of a more equitable system.

The proposals have been published in the Australian Universities Accord report, which took a year to finalise and recommends that at least 80% of the workforce will need a university qualification by 2050, a proportion that currently stands at 60%.

“Raising tertiary education attainment to these levels will not be easy. It can only be achieved by making the higher education system far more equitable,” said the report.