Working Hours of Wage and Salary Earners, Queensland (Survey of)
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NAME OF ORGANISATION The survey is to measure the extent of over-employed persons in Queensland. The survey is required to measure the extent and composition of over-employed and involuntary employed persons. Employment growth and unemployment reduction are a key priority of the current State government. Output from the survey is needed for development of appropriate policy options. The Queensland Government has reaffirmed its commitment to the Breaking the Unemployment Cycle strategy, with the focus of policy aimed at reducing the unemployment rate to 5% by the end of its second term (2003). Major users of the data will be: Anecdotal evidence of growth in over employment represents a major element in understanding the Queensland and national labour markets and has particular implications for modelling both labour supply and labour demand, particularly in respect to the extent that unpaid work is voluntary rather than involuntary. There are also implications for equity and income distribution which directly affect policy options at the State and Commonwealth levels. These data will facilitate research into a number of emerging issues in labour economics such as: Whether the current level of over employment is sustainable - is growth in unpaid work creating pressure points in the labour market? Is the incidence of unpaid hours more prevalent in industries/occupations with a greater proportion of employment growth in non-standard arrangements. To what extent is this voluntary on the part of employees? To what extent do over-employed workers match under-employed and unemployed in terms of skills and qualifications. What are the policy implications for reducing unemployment? Other complementary sources of data exist such as the Survey of Working Arrangements conducted in 1993, 1995, and 1997. This survey provides a range of useful data relating to changes in working patterns including an estimate of the number of workers undertaking unpaid work. Also, recent research by Buchanan and Bearfield (1997), Reforming Working Time, Alternatives to Unemployment, Casualisation and Excessive Hours, suggests that as many as 19.3% of workers regularly undertake unpaid work. While these data highlight the significance of over-employment as an issue for all labour market analysts, there is little information available at the State level in terms of unpaid hours, the characteristics of workers preferring to reduce their hours and the extent to which over-employment is voluntary or involuntary. The scope of the collection includes all wage and salary earners in all jobs resident in Queensland aged 15 years and over who were usual residents of private dwellings except: COVERAGE For the survey, coverage rules of the Labour Force Survey were applied which aimed to ensure that each person was associated with only one dwelling, and hence had only one chance of selection in the survey. The chance of a person being enumerated at two separate dwellings in the one survey is considered to be negligible. Persons who are away from their usual residence for 6 weeks or less at the time of interview are enumerated at their usual residence (relevant information may be obtained from other usual residents present at the time of the survey. Conceptual framework Labour force survey Main outputs For employed wage and salary earners in Queensland published and unpublished tables may include: Cross classification variables include: and from the Labour Force Survey by: In June 2000, the release of publication Working Hours of Wage and Salary Earners, Queensland, October 1999 (ABS Cat. No. 6344.3). Classifications Standard Classifications were used for Labour Force variables. Other concepts (summary) The concept of overemployment or excess hours without pay was difficult to define in the context of diminishing recognition of standard working hours. This definition was particularly problematic for salary earners where expected hours were not clearly specified. Comments and/or Other Regions Indigenous or sparsely settled stratum excluded Frequency comments Not applicable Once off Data availability comments Publication tables and special requested tables will be available for the client subject to reliability constraints. Validation checks will be carried out against other sources. Document Selection These documents will be presented in a new window.
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