The ‘big opportunity’ the ACTU sees in Australia’s current employment situation

Unemployment in Australia has fallen to the lowest rate since 1974, and a union boss says it’s a ‘big opportunity’ to force employers to offer better employment conditions.

The budget will forecast a jobless rate of only 3.75 per cent for later this year.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus says the drop in immigration is “certainly one big part” of the low unemployment rate, and she’s not keen to see things return to the pre-pandemic status quo.

“A lot of employers got very used to how it was back in 2019 and before, where they weren’t giving pay rises and where unfortunately in some parts of the economy they built in wage theft,” she told Ross and Russel.

Ms McManus wants to see employers paying locals more and training up local people, rather than relying on an “endless stream” of foreign workers.

She’s calling for major reform of the system for foreign worker recruitment.

“What’s not a good thing is an uncapped open-ended system where employers can just put an ad on Facebook on low wages and say ‘Sorry, couldn’t get any locals’ and then they can bring in workers from overseas who will work under those conditions,” Ms McManus said.

“I think this is a big opportunity for us as a country to readjust all of this … and stop ripping off migrant workers.”

Press PLAY below to hear about the ‘big opportunity’