It is very strange that at a time when unemployment rates across the world, are at the lowest levels since the 1970s, there is a cost-of-living crisis with so many people who have jobs are unable to manage to pay for basic costs including housing, food and energy. We know, of course, that these are…
In the second half of 2021, I wrote a chapter for a recently published book of Nova Publications: Women Entrepreneurs and Employment: Past, Present and Future. It was a challenging project as we entered the second and difficult year of the COVID pandemic with all its implications for work and employment. In particular the pandemic…
My research on insecure employment showed how it damaged people’s lives at many levels – it caused anxiety and stress, it robbed them of their ability to plan for the future, and it meant that they lived on a low income. Now there is a widely-held view that holding any job facilitates mobility into other…
At the time of writing in late June 2020, there has been massive impact on the economy and employment from the COVID-19 pandemic. Over recent months, during the pandemic, I wrote the following essay on the future of work and its implications for retirement. It is a chapter in an international book Who Wants to…
This new Springer book Digitisation and Precarisation : Redefining Work and Redefining Society (edited by Vyacheslav Bobkov and Peter Herrmann) explores new territory in the profound transformations under way with digitisation. In effect, the effects of digitisation on work and society is unchartered territory, only imagined in the science-fiction genre. So this book makes an important…
My new article about the future of work and the skills we will need in Open Forum. http://www.openforum.com.au/where-the-future-work-skills-debate-goes-missing/
The narrative of inequality is largely framed as an ever larger gap between the top and bottom levels of income and wealth hierarchies and a greatly reduced middle level inhibiting opportunity for upward social and economic mobility or even simply maintenance of an adequate standard of living. Disturbing new research shows that in Australia, two…
The Australian trade union movement is reinvigorating its fight against insecure jobs. This is one of the most important battles in these times of burgeoning inequality. The ACTU’s new documents to back up its fight Australia’s insecure work crisis: Fixing it for the future and Jobs You Can Count On are well researched and broad in scope. Its proposals cover strengthening…
A key theme of my public speaking and writing over the last few years has been the effect of digitalisation on jobs. I take the view that the effect of digitalisation is not so much in replacing workers but rather how it will transform jobs and the way that they are done. So machines become…
Last Wednesday, ACTU secretary, Sally McManus gave a speech at the National Press Club on increasing the minimum wage and improving job security. I was asked by the ABC NSW Statewide Drive program with Fiona Wyllie, to respond which I did on the day. Of course, I support any efforts to promote employment security. Further…
My submission to the Senate Inquiry on the Future of Work and Workers (I was invited to submit). My submission can be downloaded here at Submission 119 (in column 6) https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Future_of_Work_and_Workers/FutureofWork/Submissions
The Age’s Good Weekend magazine almost always offers interesting longer articles for relaxed weekend enjoyment. But in a recent edition (3 February 2018) there was a disturbing aspect to the publication. The front cover of the magazine highlighted the feature story about property developer Michael Buxton and his art collection with the the tropes: MAKE…
This month in Sydney, I gave a presentation on the future of work to a group of employment service providers who work with very disadvantaged clients. Their core task is to help people who are in some way on the back foot in the competitive job market of the present time. With so many predictions of…
For some years, I have been following the global debate about the adoption of universal basic income (UBI) while researching and writing about the changing face of employment – and the changing face of social welfare – as reflected in the content of this website. My doctoral research focussed on employment insecurity and the difficulties…
At the moment the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) is focussing much attention on issues relating to the “future of work”. I had my say and answered a few questions about the future of work – also the present reality of work – on the Drive program yesterday on ABC radio 774. My interview starts at the…
Dr. Veronica Sheen 