Fair Work Australia’s decision to cut Sunday penalty rates can go two ways. If, as the business community and the government hopes, it results in more jobs then that will be a good thing.
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We want more jobs. Indeed, we desperately need them, especially for our young folk who in this electorate suffer one of the highest rates of youth unemployment.
Getting that first foot into the employment market is a vital step on the road to full-time work.
The days of walking into a job straight out of school with no experience are all but over. As many employers in the Shoalhaven will tell you, there are jobs out there but what’s lacking is skill and experience.
If cutting back on Sunday penalty rates changes that first-job landscape and gets more young people on the bottom rung of the employment ladder, well and good.
Of course, there are no guarantees whatsoever that will happen. The big temptation for small businesses especially will be to maintain existing rosters and pocket the savings.
If they have been getting by, why wouldn’t they? Any boost to their bottom line will be welcome but it won’t necessarily be turned around to put more people on the payroll.
It is a huge leap of faith to expect a sudden rush of retail and hospitality jobs to magically open up on the back of the penalty rates cut.
If it doesn’t happen, then the argument of the Opposition and the union movement – that the lowest paid workers are having their wages cut – will carry more weight.
The whole argument for cutting penalty rates is based on supposition. We can only really judge its success or otherwise in July next year, when the cuts have been in place for a year.
If the expected jobs have materialised, we will know that it was probably worth it. If they have not, we will know it wasn’t and that a whole lot of people have copped an unfair cut to their wages and living standards.
Should the latter scenario come to pass, this erosion of pay will be very difficult to unpick and Fair Work’s decision will threaten to entrench an underclass of low-paid workers.
So mark the date in your diaries – July 1, 2018.
Only then will we able to see whether a decision based on a theory has had the desired effect, in which case we will applaud it. The waiting game begins.
