Victorians emerging from lockdowns now confront Australia’s harsh COVID-era work reality marked by more insecure jobs, mass unemployment, and long-term work at the kitchen table.
In this commentary, which originally appeared in The Age, Centre for Future Work Senior Economist Alison Pennington discusses what the pandemic reveals about Australia’s high levels of insecure work, new work-from-home risks, and how rebuilding more secure labour markets will be critical to creating more good jobs in our post-COVID recovery.
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Centre For Future Work to evolve into standalone entity
The Centre for Future Work was established by the Australia Institute in 2016 to conduct and publish progressive economic research on work, employment, and labour markets. Supported by the Australian Union movement, the centre produced cutting edge research and led the national conversation on economic issues facing working people: including the future of jobs, wages
Go Home On Time Day 2025. As full timers disconnect, part timers are doing more unpaid overtime
New research by the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute has revealed a disturbing new twist when it comes to unpaid overtime in Australia.
A Women’s Agenda for COVID-Era Reconstruction
Women have been uniquely and disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting recession: losing more jobs and hours, shouldering a higher unpaid caring work burden, and undertaking essential and frontlines jobs. Without targeted action to rebuild women’s jobs and ease caring demands, decades of collective advances toward decent paid work could be eroded.

