Australia’s s Leader of the Opposition and leader of the Australian Labor Party has come under criticism after he claimed that the country’s casual workers are growing as a share of Australia’s workforce.

The Australian Financial Review (paywall) said that Labour leader Anthony Albanese’s claims that workforce casualisation has increased have been ‘exposed as misleading’. The paper cited official employment data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showing the share of workers in casual jobs has drifted down. The data showed that the share of casual employment was 22.8% in February 2022, 1.3% lower than in February 2020, just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit the economy. The casualisation rate is also 4.8% below the peak of 27.6% in 2003.

Albanese has insisted that the country’s strong labour market concealed a rising “casualisation” of the workforce. In the lead up to the 21 May Australia federal election, Albanese has campaigned on the "increasingly casualised workforce", the "drift to casualisation" and the "problem of creeping casualisation and cowboy labour hire firm."

The Daily Mail noted that  the ABS figures classify casual workers as a share of employees on the payroll while Albanese and the Labour Party are reportedly concerned about the rise in contractor labour, used by the likes of Uber and Deliveroo.

Charles Cameron, Chief Executive Officer RCSA (Recruitment, Consulting and Staffing Association of Australia & New Zealand), said in a LinkedIn post, “The ALP (Australia Labour Party) line that labour hire is growing out of control has been proven to be a lie or, at best, really lazy policy. Either way, the Australian Labour Party are now being held to account, and it's about time.”

University of Melbourne labour economist Mark Wooden said it was "completely wrong" to suggest casualisation rates had increased.

"There has been no change, and if anything it's fallen since the pandemic," Wooden said. "The casualisation of the workforce occurred in the 1980s and '90s when a Labour government was in charge and the ACTU (Australian Council of Trade Unions) was sitting at the bargaining table in the accord."

According to The Australian, Prime Minister Scott Morrison accused Albanese of “going around at the union’s ­behest talking about rising rights of casualisation in the workforce, and he’s been caught out there again”. The Prime Minister said official stats showed casualisation “had been about the same level for about 20 years”.

“His fundamental understanding of the economy is wrong. He doesn’t know what’s happening in the economy,” Morrison said.

The ACTU this week published a report showing that casual workers in Australia are earning on average AUD 350 less each week than their permanent full time or part time counterparts.

The report also showed that an estimated 4.15 million Australian workers are currently in insecure work, including casual work, labour hire, gig economy workers, and those on rolling fixed-term contracts. This is about half a million more than when the Coalition came to power in late 2013, the report added.

On the report, Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chief Executive Andrew McKellar said the ACTU had made "false claims on job insecurity".

"The ACTU wants to redefine casual employment, destroying certainty and placing jobs for hundreds of thousands of Australians at risk,” McKellar said. "The fact of the matter is unions don't like casual employment because casuals are less likely to join unions."

Albanese said this week, "We have a plan to have more secure work which is better paid" Labour's "Secure Australian Jobs Plan" includes legislating a test to determine when a worker can be classified as casual, so people have clearer pathways to permanent work.

Labour also has a "same job, same pay" policy to ensure that workers employed through labour hire companies receive no less than workers employed directly, such as coal mine workers. Gig workers would also win new protections by extending the powers of the Fair Work Commission to include "employee-like" forms of work.

ACTU Secretary Sally McManus is also calling for introducing a fair definition of what constitutes a casual worker; introducing "same job, same pay" laws so labour hire workers are paid the same as their directly employed counterparts; closing legal loopholes that make it easy for employers to call employees "independent contractors"; granting gig economy workers stronger workplace rights; and limiting the use of fixed-term contracts.

McManus said, “Insecure work gives employers the upper hand in pay negotiations with more than four million workers. It’s a key part of the reason we have such low wage growth. It’s also the reason why a record number of people are now forced to work more than one job. It is a huge problem that a record number of people now need more than one of them to get by.”