A new survey by ME Bank shows that nearly half of all Australian households earning less than $40,000 a year faced hardships and remained backwards financially last year.
Last year, only a third of households reported income gains.
According to this survey:
- Households making above $200,000 reported high levels of 'financial comfort',
- Job insecurity and growing underemployment is hurting Australian households, and
- The gap between rich and poor is widening.
Canberra-based policy expert Usman Chohan says that job insecurity combined with growing underemployment amongst migrant community needs to be tackled urgently at policy level.
He adds that casual or part time work has become a negative trend.
Because of this new migrants end-up doing 3-5 jobs in a week and do not know when they will have to look for a new one.
The report suggests that 60-70% of people on casual or part-time jobs are looking for more hours work and income.
Usman adds that these people face high levels of financial risk.
He adds that at policy level the Government of Australia needs to focus on initiatives to create more jobs.
To know more about the issue of Job insecurity and casual employment increases in Australia, listen to Amit Sarwal’s conversation with Usman Chohan.
Usman W. Chohan Source: Usman W. Chohan
