Competition and the Growth of Non-Standard Employment: The Case of the Australian Construction Industry

Education, Skill and Unions in the Australian Construction Industry

“…This is driven by intensified competitive pressures, the shift to funding output through private sector global capital markets and changes to taxation . Accompanying these changes has been a significant increase in the extent to which subcontracting and self-employment are used in the industry (Buchanan and Allen 1998;Toner and Coates 2006;and McGrath-Champ 2008). Between 1978 and 2001, self employment in construction increased from 19 percent to 36 percent of total employment in the sector.…”

Organizational change in Australian building and construction: rethinking a unilinear ‘leaning’ discourse

“…The role of head contractors has been largely transformed with management concentrated upon activity that is up-stream and down-stream from the physical construction process. The companies in their conglomerate form are as much financiers and marketers of construction projects as they are project managers (Toner and Coates, 2006; see also Winch, 1998;ILO, 2001). Nowadays head contractors are essentially high-level management 'shells', often oriented more towards financing projects than deployment of workers and supervision of building work.…”

Workforce Skills and Innovation

“…Such strategies can limit the growth of workforce skills. There is empirical evidence across developed countries that workers on non-standard forms of employment are significantly less likely to receive employer funded training or to invest themselves in the acquisition of skills for jobs which have uncertain employment outcomes (Mangan 2000;Toner 2006).…”