Jobs jobs jobs. Job creation has always been a priority economic policy of successive governments, just as it is now as the recovery phase of the global pandemic crisis begins. However, prior to COVID-19, there was little acknowledgement that not all jobs are the same.

The COVID-19 crisis has revealed how polarised and inequitable our employment market has been in the past. Not only has the pandemic exposed the vulnerability of the industry structure of our economy and the precarious nature of employment for so many, it has also highlighted the importance of the work carried out by so many Tasmanians whose industry and jobs have previously been undervalued; namely the health care and social assistance sector, educators, child carers, cleaners and many public servants.

The recovery process provides the opportunity to correct the structural economic and social deficiencies that exist in our labour market. Policy needs to move beyond just creating jobs, but to creating good jobs which offer quality work in a good working environment. There are three guiding principles which measure good jobs, all of which need to be objective rather than subjective.

1. Focusing on job-related well-being; job quality is constituted by a set of work features which have the capability of enhancing or diminishing worker well-being
2. Maintaining a job-only focus; that is, the attributes of the job occupied by the worker and not the workers personal circumstances or background
3. Adopting a multi-faced approach; a variety of job attributes impact worker well-being. While remuneration is considered the main factor, there are others such as security of work, autonomy, range of tasks, level of effort, career opportunities, access to training and/or professional development, flexibility, skill utilisation and so forth.

The OECD’s job quality framework comprises measures of earnings, labour market security and the quality of the working environment.

In Tasmania, prior to COVID-19, the workforce was polarised between high and low skill jobs. Almost half the workforce (47.1%) required no formal qualification higher than a Certificate II, while less than a third (29.7%) required a bachelor degree or higher to undertake their job. Over time, Tasmania’s workforce was becoming further polarised, with the proportion requiring a certificate III or IV qualification (a trade ticket) declining to 12.6% of the workforce compared with 16.6% in 2016.
 
More and more people in the workforce were also in casual roles – that is, roles with flexibility, but usually without job security and the protections of sick, carer and holiday pay.

In August 2019, there were almost 250,000 people employed in Tasmania. Of these:

• 42,500 wanted to work more hours
• 17,000 had more than one job
• 97,200 were employed casually
• 93,800 did not have access to paid sick leave entitlements – three in five workers
  • 26.3% of women, 21.4% of men
• 4,600 did not know if they had paid sick leave entitlements
• 18,700 worked as independent contractors with no entitlements

 
The Tasmanian workforce was dominated by gendered industries and occupation clusters. Five industry sectors made up more than half of the Tasmanian workforce; healthcare and social assistance (16.4%), education and training, retail trade, accommodation and food services and construction (7.2%). While women made up the majority of workers in health care and social assistance (80.2%) and education and training (69.4%), men made up 93.9% of the construction industry.
 
The roles most likely to be casualised, underemployed and working more than one job are those also in lower skill level jobs with low pay – precisely those roles that involve face-to-face and hands-on contact, care and support for customers, clients, patients and other vulnerable people.
 
In relation to paid sick leave entitlements in Tasmania, pre-COVID-19, only a quarter (26.7) of cleaners had access to paid leave, just over half the hospitality, retail and service managers (53%) and food trade workers (57%), 69% of education professionals had access while one in five (21%) workers in residential care services had no access. The situation was more dire for those who worked as a carer or an aide; one in four (24.7%) had no paid sick leave but worked face-to-face with older and more vulnerable people.
 
These workers were also more likely to be under-employed and wanting to work more hours. Over one in five community and personal service workers were underemployed (21.6%), over a quarter of those employed in the accommodation and food services sector were under-employed (27.4%), as were those in the arts and recreation sector (25.0%), 17.2% in other services and 16.7% in retail trade, the majority of them women.  

At a time when making businesses and workplaces COVIDSafe for customers, clients and workers is a priority in our economic and social recovery, the lack of access to paid sick leave by largely under-employed Tasmanians working in contact roles with vulnerable people threatens our recovery. As new COVIDSafe policies require sick workers to stay at home rather than work, and sick children to not attend school, access to paid sick and carer leave entitlements will be critical to ensuring these regulations are adhered to.
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The economic component of the post COVID-19 recovery must not be considered in isolation of the social component.  Efforts to create jobs must focus not just on higher skilled jobs but also on quality jobs; those which provide enough hours of work, with security of income, access to paid sick and carers leave, the opportunity for career progression and intrinsic job quality. To do this, economic policy must be shaped by industry policy. More secure work and quality working environments are better for the economy as well as the health and well-being of Tasmanians. 

As the Premier and his Economic and Social Recovery Advisory Council consider both the economic and social impact of COVID-19 for Tasmania, it is critical that that a recovery plan is founded in evidence with a long-term objective to achieve economic and social sustainability for all Tasmanians.

While in the short term, stimulating economic activity will be critical to ensure that the health crisis does not cause a deep, long lasting economic crisis, targeted short-term stimulus can also set the foundations to achieve greater longer term economic and social outcomes.  

I believe there are four key opportunities for Tasmania going forward, each linked to our existing, pre-COVID-19 structural challenges.

1. Approach the investment in the health care and social assistance industry as an economic and social opportunity
2. Use the opportunities attached to population ageing to address the challenges of ageing
3. Prioritise industry policy that aims to increase diversity across industries and markets
4. Aim to achieve a ‘strong middle’ educational attainment structure (EAS)

 
Given the current situation of the COVID-19 global pandemic, with the state and national borders effectively closed to immigration (see recent migration analysis for Tasmania), it is likely that population growth will slow considerably in the short to medium term and that the rate of population ageing will intensify.  Future economic and social policy development for Tasmania will need to be positioned in the context of a population with low or no population growth and ageing rapidly.

Even when Tasmania was experiencing its strongest rate of population growth in a Century, the population was still ageing, and ageing at a faster rate than the rest of the country. Nearly half of Tasmania’s Local Government Areas had already been experiencing population decline for a prolonged period prior to the pandemic. When, and if, Tasmania returns to relatively strong population growth, it will continue to age, both in terms of the number of older people and in terms of proportion of the total population.

Prior to the pandemic, the health care and social assistance sector contributed both the highest proportion to Gross State Product (GSP) and to employment than any other industry sector, yet its contribution was not valued as such in the community. Research by the University of Tasmania’s Institute of Social Change found that Tasmanians greatest wish into the post-COVID-19 future in Tasmania is access to a quality healthcare.

First, greater understanding of the Return on Investment (RoI) in the health care and social assistance sector and the potential of the White Economy, would assist shift this negative perception and also inform greater investment in the provision of health care and social assistance in Tasmania.

Second, as the Premier considers his infrastructure and construction plan, investment in the regeneration and re-purposing of the built environment in relation to population ageing also needs to be considered.

Revitalisation of regional centres and public spaces can both stimulate economic activity in regional areas but also ensure that the new infrastructure meets the needs of that community.

As regional populations age and/or decline, their town centres and public spaces can also deteriorate, creating a fragmented and under-utilised spatial structure. The visible degradation of the built environment, for example houses, buildings and other public infrastructure can impact the perception of the place and detract people from living there. Policy initiatives that target the revitalisation of a town centre and its periphery in response to shrinkage have two main aims; to improve standards of living through urban renewal while maintaining cultural heritage and to improve social cohesion.

A number of major towns in Tasmania could benefit from urban renewal projects which focus on the regeneration of the existing built environment and the revitalisation, re-purposing and right-sizing of public and private infrastructure, services, amenities and housing to meet the needs of their changing populations. Appropriate towns to consider for fit-for-purpose urban renewal projects are those with transport corridors and access to other towns within their periphery, as well as to towns and major urban centres outside their immediate periphery which may provide larger-scale public services to their community.

Third, to safe-guard against external shocks, Tasmania needs to improve the diversity of its industry structure and markets, particularly focusing on increasing the traded-market sector of the economy.

In 2019 the The BankWestCurtin Economic Centre developed a strategy for future-proofing the Western Australian economy. The research underpinning this strategy could be quickly and easily replicated for Tasmania.
The strategy is based on the framework of economic complexity developed by the Harvard University Kennedy Business School (explained here from an Australian context), and smart specialisation.  A‘smart specialisation’ approach to regional diversification ensures that new development opportunities build on existing regional capabilities and capitalise on local conditions and networks as well as boost their competitive advantage by prioritising innovation and research.

Strategic new product opportunities are further diversified according to a realistic indicator of either; ‘low-hanging fruit’, balanced portfolio or a ‘long jump’.

Tasmania needs to identify its low hanging fruit to start building the foundations of a more diversified economy from which to build a stronger economy over the longer term.

Fourth, in addition to improving the participation in, and completion of, schooling and further education for individual Tasmanians, much greater attention needs to be provided to the Educational Attainment Structure (EAS) of Tasmania’s workforce and future workforce.  

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) suggests that type of EAS, rather than levels of educational attainment, is the most significant determinant of the pattern of industrial development and economic growth. The type of EAS is explained by the share of the labour force based on educational attainment according to its shape along a bell curve.

The ILO argues that capabilities to innovate and develop new products are influenced by the particular mix of educational, vocational and technical competencies embodied in the labour force.

‘Strong middle’ EAS are those with relatively higher shares of vocational and technical education and training. This EAS provides the widest range of options for developing and diversifying industry structures.

‘Missing-middle’ EAS are polarised and present with relatively lower shares of vocational and technical education but higher shares of schooling and tertiary education. Missing middle EASs provide limited options for innovation as the labour force lacks the broad supply of complementary occupations required in addition to tertiary qualified managers and professionals. 

Critically absent in a missing middle EAS is a workforce with design skills; skills that enable workforces to invent their own products and solutions rather than just skills to replicate others’ designs. These skills are predominantly acquired in vocational and technical education at the diploma or advanced diploma level.

Tasmania currently has a missing middle EAS and its workforce is skewed to both high and low skill occupations.

Without a strong middle EAS workforce and a focus on diversifying the economy, combined with a low population growth situation, and an ageing population, Tasmania will struggle to recover from the economic consequences of this global pandemic crisis.