Poor Work Life Balance in Australia In today’s world many people are trying to balance their work and their personal life which can be a huge challenge. There have been studies showing that having a poor work life balance can cause an unhealthy level of stress; unhappiness and it can actually reduce productivity. Also many people suffering from poor work life balance can find it impacts their relationships and ability to actually enjoy and value their lives. What are the health implications of working too much? According to a report by OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), when it comes to good lives, Australia is one of the best countries, compared to other 35 countries but when it comes to work it is not too good. The average working hours in Australia is 1728 hours a year which is less than the OECD average of 1765 hours. So officially we are clocked up to work less hours however many Australians are forced to work overtime. Often we work more than 50 hours per week overtime which is much more than what the OECD average. Even though many are working overtime it does not mean that they are happy with their pay. There have been reports that the percentage of Australians satisfied with their …show more content…
More than 1500 people in Australia took part. In 2013 it was reported that Australians have lower levels of wellbeing and have higher levels of stress. About 73% of Australians reported that stress had at least impacted them and 17% stated that stress had had a strong impact on their physical health. It was also stated that stress was also affecting their mental health. This stress is often caused by the way the deal with work pressures. It has been found that a significant decline in the workplace with the workers being pushed and pressured and are increasingly more distressed and depressed at their
Australia became a commonwealth of the British Empire in 1901. It was able to take advantage of its natural resources to rapidly develop its agricultural and manufacturing industries and to make a major contribution to the British effort in World Wars I and II. Now, Australia has a prosperous Western-style capitalist economy, with a per capita GDP at the level of the four dominant West European economies. Rich in natural resources, Australia is a major exporter of agricultural products, minerals, metals, and fossil fuels.
In order to create Australia’s image as a working man’s paradise, workers gained rights to speak. The first of these issues to be discussed are the hours of work. The balanced working time of eight-hour day movement was introduced in the mid 19th century. It was conducted by trade unions for the right of shorter working hours suitable Australia’s harsh climate. This fairer working condition of eight-hour day has succeeded by the end of the century, when the government introduced fairer laws in the late 1890s which attempted to reduce working hours and give workers Saturday afternoon off. This achievement established a national standard that was aspired by the rest of the world and formed the basis of Australia’s reputation as a ‘working man’s paradise’.
Living and working conditions near the turn of the 20th century in Australia was very diverse and many social issues where apparent. Firstly, working conditions where often poor and the majority of working class Australians had little to no spare time due to being devoted to their jobs. Many men felt entitled to be the strength of a household and provide for the family, and often women and children had to seek employment because most families needed more income flow, however women mostly tended to their household duties . Working conditions where poor and jobs consisted of long hours of labor and little pay, however 4 weeks’ annual leave was granted just as it is today. Secondly, living conditions where very cramped and unsafe, the average
Over the past decades, casual employment in Australia has become a phenomenon of great concern. With the soaring numbers of casual employment, the debates about the benefits and drawbacks of causal employment have become fiercer. Casualization is a very important form of employment in Australia, which has been protected by workplace law. The majority of casual labor force constantly contact with their potential employers to apply job and confirm the arrangement of working time from month to month, or even week to week. In term of wages, causal workers cannot get paid for the annual holiday leave. However, they can receive more paid than the full-time workers for the same working hours. In this essay, how casual
Unemployment in the Australian economy is defined as the state of involuntary idleness of work, and the rate of such. An extremely complex, it is often segregated into four key demographics for analysis: national, state, youth and mature. Each of these four demographics feature varying trends and are consistently affected by different factors of the labour market.
Economic indicators are a crucial guide for gaining an understanding of the statistics of how efficiently our resources are being utilised. This is why the unemployment rate and also the full time employment rate are such monumental subjects of attention. The unemployment rate could be further diluted with the investment into education and training of Australians with the added benefit of protection against unemployment in the case of an economic boom. Economically successful companies have a strangle hold on the global marketplace, this advantage is derived from the gap in education and training of the workers these companies employ. Highly educated employees yield better productivity meaning faster production for the company and an increase in intrinsic motivation by earning more on average. (Investopedia, Education Training Advantages, 2016)This in turn benefits the entire economy due to decreasing unemployment and increasing residents’ disposable income. For Australia to remain a threat to the market and gain greater diversity, skill acquisition is paramount but only gained through education and formal recognition. A perfect example of this is despite the recent negotiations for free trade agreement china has lowered their demand for Australian commodities. This has had a massive impact since 2011(Australia’s ToT, SMH, 2016) and has seen a massive plummet in commodity
The Australian economy has experienced large changes in the structure of what it produces and how. These have been caused by technological change; by fuller integration into world markets, along with the rise of competition from lower wage countries in the production of manufactured goods (and increasingly, services); and by changes in the pattern of consumption as real incomes rise. The sustained loss of jobs in the production of goods has lead to a major decline in job opportunities for men who have only modest levels of formal education. But it is also evident in the withdrawal from the workforce altogether of such men. In contrast, the expanding areas of the economy have been particularly likely to employ women, whose share of paid work has been rising steadily (especially for married women and women with dependent children).
Work-life balance is a combination of interactions among different areas of one’s life; the advantages and disadvantages associated with that balance/imbalance are countless and can affect multiple levels of society (Schoenfeld, 2005).
Australia has changed since the mining boom. A lot people have migrated from their countries to here to get a job in the mining industry, because of the high amount of ore that is being produced here and the amount of money you earn. Since the mining boom, it has attracted a lot of people to want to come work here in the mines, but so many people want to be employed, but because there is not a job for everyone, not everyone got employed in the mining industry. See source 4 it shows you how much investment it got over the past years.Source 4- the investment in mining over the past years.
The unemployment rate has decreased a significant amount. A main cause of this is the government working hard to reduce taxes and regulatory burdens within businesses. The government is also working on improving working conditions. Eric Abetz, the Australian Minister for Employment stated that Australia is, “recognizing that it is businesses which create jobs, not government” (Abetz,14). This shows that the government is focusing on the businesses themselves rather than creating new jobs. With the businesses having success, this will lead to creating more jobs for those unemployed. Australia is encouraging everyone in the country to participate in the labor force as they do everything they can to improve it. In January of 2016, Australia’s unemployment rate was just at 6.4%, and since then it has not hit that high number again. Over the past three years the unemployment rate has taken a full turn around. As of July 2017, it is now at about 5.5%.( Figure 2*) Middle Eastern migrants take up most of the unemployment percentage, they find it very difficult to find jobs in Australia. They have a 33% jobless rate within their five years of living in the country. The unemployment rate for them is around 17.5 %, this is compared to the 3.6% for southeastern Asians and 1.9% for
One of the effects of structural unemployment is work intensification. The few people qualified for the job are overloaded with work, being forced to work longer hours in the attempt on meeting companies’ targets. Almost 1\3 of full-time employees work routinely more than 48 hours per week, and 1\3 of these work frequently more than 60 hours per week (Peetz et al, 2003). According to the OECD report, Australia has the most substantial percentage of workers operating long hours in the OECD and it is now the 2nd longest working time nation in the advanced world (OECD report, 2012). On the other hand, 1 in 7 workers is underemployed: that means, they are employed for less hours than they want, and 1\4 of these have a part-time job because they cannot find full-time work, limited by their scarcity or mis-match of skills (Wilkins, 2007). Moreover, Australia has one of the biggest percentage of underemployment among developed countries as well as a remarkable amount of long term redundancy (OECD report, 2012).
Firstly, I would like to introduce what is the FWA, the Fair Work Australia is “The Australia’s national workplace relations system, the Fair work system, started on 1 July 2009 and was created by the Fair work Act 2009; it covers the majority of workplaces in Australia” (Fwc.gov.au, 2015). Which is
Australia has gone from a highly centralized wage determination system to a mainly decentralized one. There has been a move away from accords and awards to enterprise bargaining, through the 96 Workplace Relations Act. Recent policies include changes to unfair dismissal claims and the 2005 workplace reforms package.
Stress is a common issue that faces every human being in different times. Stress can be caused by many factors, but one of the main reasons is work which is called occupational stress or work-related stress. Job stress does not only affect the employees’ performance within an organization, but also it affects their general health. Stress has become a challenge for employers now because high level stress results in low productivity, increased absenteeism and other problems like alcoholism, drug abuse and hypertension (Ahmad, Mohamed. 2017). It became a major problem for employers especially in developing countries where they don’t realize the importance of work-life balance and the impact of stress on the productivity level and the job
Researchers have argued that work-life balance practices have impacts on work performance, interpersonal relations, improvement in productivity and reduction on turnover rate (Beauregard and Henry, 2009). In this essay, the writer mainly focuses on the discussion of how work-life balance influence employee retention. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that work-life balance plays an important role in retaining employees.