Callous capitalism: endless insecurity

Date
    July 29, 2013

Paul Sheehan
Sydney Morning Herald columnist


Australia is one of the most advanced large capitalist societies in the world, to the point where we are in the midst of an enormous social experiment.      

We think this country is fixated by trends from abroad but Australia is a pace-setter when it comes to work and working culture. We have opened our economy so much to globalism, corporatism and free markets that we have reached the tipping point where most people in the workforce no longer have full-time permanent jobs.

In the age of corporate hyper-efficiency, and of Frankenstein human resource departments with management pseudo-science invoking ''key performance indicators'', the very idea of having a mostly permanent full-time staff is becoming a concept of luxury.

Corporations, private and public, are increasingly outsourcing, offshoring, subcontracting, casualising or downsizing their workforce. Or all of the above. The most soulless corporations engage in a practice called ''managing out'', where the bottom 20 per cent of staff, as measured by KPIs, are pushed out of the company.


Call it the imperatives of the unforgiving marketplace. Call it structural change. Or the rising velocity of innovation, or the accelerating cycle of obsolescence. Call it gimlet-eyed greed. Just don't call it by that impregnably pompous corporate euphemism of ''challenging''.

It is callous capitalism, the logical extreme, the point where the unceasing quest and pressure and need for greater operating efficiencies and lower costs has reached the point where it is biting into social capital.

Social capital does not appear in corporate balance sheets. It is invisible on management spread sheets. It is irrelevant to KPIs. But it is an invaluable, intangible, incalculable asset. And it has consequences. It helps drive consumer confidence and thus consumer spending.

Why do you think Australians are collectively behaving so cautiously with their money, despite more than two decades of uninterrupted growth, one of the highest livings standards in the world and relatively full unemployment? Why are so many retailers and small businesses in chronic stress?

Australia has enjoyed a decade-long mining boom, yielding boom-time salaries for those who built the mines and the infrastructure and do the mining and servicing, but it has all made barely a dent on the ranks of people with permanent full-time jobs. This is because the bulk of the work was done under contract, and thousands of those costly contracts are not being renewed.

The dry numbers tell a dramatic story. They reveal a tipping point.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, about 11.65 million people are in the Australian workforce. Of these, 2.8 million are working part-time. Another 2 million are employed as independent contractors or small business operators. An estimated 300,000 full-time employees are working on contract (the estimates vary but the upward trend is clear). Then there are the 700,000 officially unemployed.      

The total of these part-time workers, contractors, contracted employees, self-employed and unemployed comes to 5.8 million. Or roughly the same as the number of full-time permanent employees.

Which means we may have reached the tipping point where the number of people with permanent full-time jobs may be exceeded by the number of people in the workforce who are not permanent full-time employees. Add to this mix the 900,000 employees who want more work and are classified as underemployed.      

Don't expect the unions to come to the rescue. Under Labor, the unions have had a smorgasbord of policy wins, from anti-bullying laws to broader unfair dismissal provisions, so that the laws have tilted to the European paradigm where the rights of workers are so highly protected that employers are loathe to hire new people. This has been devastating for the young, where the European Community has become a depression zone, with unemployment rates of 20 per cent for the young and up to 45 per cent in the basket-case economies.

Australia is no paragon, given the youth unemployment rate here is 14.5 per cent. Increasingly, under Fair Work Australia, companies are baulking at the risks of taking on permanent employees.      

One of the structural deceits of the Labor government is that it has created a million jobs since it came to office. A fabrication. The federal government has directly created only a fraction of that, and the workforce has grown much faster than the number of jobs created, despite the government's $250 billion deficit spending.

Thanks in large part to high immigration under Labor, the labor force has risen by 1.2 million since 2007, but the number of jobs created has risen by 925,000. Thus the unemployment and the under-employment rate have both risen.      

The total of these part-time workers, contractors, contracted employees, self-employed and unemployed comes to 5.8 million. Or roughly the same as the number of full-time permanent employees.

That's concerning and quite believable, and it's not just here, it's the trend throughout most of the OECD nations.

This is the beginning of a whole new era, the next generations won't be working like the past generations did. As I've said before the industrial revolution is history and service industries can't take up the slack.

This is also the reason that there won't be another housing boom.

I heard on the news that the Construction industries won't be able to support the economy especially in non resources states like Victoria. This is what happens when you don't have a plan 'B'.

Once a person owns his own home and has the deeds to the property filed away with the local solicitors ~ 60% of your earnings are for Disneyland ~ and 40% for your utility bills and for shopping.

I remember years ago, as a single bloke ~ and when I owned my own home ~ thinking... 'why the hell do I have to put in the same number of hours each week as everyone else at work'?

Crazy stuff. I would have been deliriously happy if I was only required to work 3 days out of 7. That's all I needed. Didn't own a car. Didn't smoke. Didn't drink. Didn't gamble.

But there I was, slaving away, shoulder-to-shoulder with people who were paying off a heavy mortgage... car ... kids ... private medical insurance ... family holidays away from home... etc etc.

For two days in the working week I was actually working to help finance our welfare system. Helping finance the baby-bonus. etc.

The whole business of the working life-style needs a Royal Commission of Inquiry.

Who the hell said we have to work 5 days out of 7 until we're 65/67/70 to pay for our needs?

It's a scam. It's a setup. It's capitalism gone mad.

The workplace should be structured in such a way as to allow for flexibility and the requirements of the individual.

Some will want to work the whole 5 workdays ~ some less. That option has not yet become available. 

Logically, we are inevitably heading towards a time when the working life will no longer be necessary. Our weekends will be 5 days long.  

longweekend58 wrote on Jul 29^th, 2013 at 6:01pm:


maybe you should try to read it in full

Quote:



now who isn't reading????

damn you people are stupid.  I suspected you read the first few lines only and assumed it was a liberal bashing article and so went on to say 'damn right' etc without actually reading it.

fools.

Firstly, the link to an article, is always a good idea!
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/callous-capitalism-endless-insecurity-20130728-2qs...

Second, it never ceases to amaze me that "pre-conceived Political alignments" manage to colour so many comments!

perceptions_now wrote on Jul 29^th, 2013 at 10:51pm:



*
Don't expect the unions to come to the rescue. Under Labor, the unions have had a smorgasbord of policy wins, from anti-bullying laws to broader unfair dismissal provisions, so that the laws have tilted to the European paradigm where the rights of workers are so highly protected that employers are loathe to hire new people. This has been devastating for the young, where the European Community has become a depression zone, with unemployment rates of 20 per cent for the young and up to 45 per cent in the basket-case economies.
Australia is no paragon, given the youth unemployment rate here is 14.5 per cent. Increasingly, under Fair Work Australia, companies are baulking at the risks of taking on permanent employees.
One of the structural deceits of the Labor government is that it has created a million jobs since it came to office. A fabrication. The federal government has directly created only a fraction of that, and the workforce has grown much faster than the number of jobs created, despite the government's $250 billion deficit spending.





Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/callous-capitalism-endless-insecurity-20130728-
2qsnk.html#ixzz2aUUr7Ucz




is this what you mean perc?