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The maker of Dove toiletries and Streets ice creams will allow 500 Australian employees to work shorter weeks after a pilot found staff could be just as productive in four days as five by removing low-value tasks such as meetings and emails.

Unilever Australia will test a four-day workweek for at least 12 months from November 14, and will base its trial on the 100:80:100 model, whereby employees retain 100 per cent of their pay but reduce their hours to 80 per cent, provided they maintain 100 per cent productivity.

All staff except for factory employees covered by existing enterprise bargaining agreements will take part in the trial, which comes after Unilever achieved good results with a four-day workweek experiment in New Zealand.

University of Technology Business School monitored the trial across the ditch. Based on three company-wide online surveys and 57 in-depth interviews between December 1, 2020 and June 30, 2022, it found that staff were less stressed, more productive and more committed to the organisation after the introduction of reduced working hours.

Staff took 34 per cent fewer sick days in 2021 than in 2020. And across the full 18-month trial period, stress fell by 33 per cent, work-life conflicts dropped by 67 per cent, and feelings of strength and vigour at work increased by 15 per cent.

The experiment, which covered about 80 employees in New Zealand and has since been extended, also allowed for strong results against the company’s business objectives. Targets for overheads, market-winning share and sales and revenue growth were either met or exceeded.

The vast majority of employees embraced the change, with 72.8 per cent saying they were frequently sticking to reduced hours, and 88.5 per cent describing the trial as a positive experience.

Fewer emails, fewer meetings

Anish Singh, the head of HR for Unilever Australia and New Zealand, told The Australian Financial Review that moving to a four-day workweek was about giving staff greater autonomy as well as the opportunity to try different ways of working.

He said he hoped a shorter workweek in Australia would lead to happier and healthier employees at the same level of productivity – or even higher.

Key to the trial’s success in New Zealand, he said, was prioritising some tasks while eliminating those that added little or no value.

As a result, the company reduced the average time employees spent in meetings by 3½ hours per week, slashed the number of emails sent and adopted technology such as Microsoft Teams for video calls.

Bronwen Dalton, head of the department of management at UTS Business School, said one of the two big takeaways from the New Zealand trial was that companies had to change the way they worked for a four-day week to be successful.

“[You need] fewer emails, fewer meetings, less time on the phone and other distractions, and [you need to adopt] a practice of deeper work,” she said.

The second major takeaway was that companies should not make a four-day workweek compulsory for all staff, as this takes away the extra autonomy typically given to employees when moving to a work practice focused on outcomes rather than the number of hours worked.

Asked whether the study’s findings were reliable given they were based on surveys, Professor Dalton said the research would be subject to a peer review and used well-established academic techniques, known as “verifiable academic instruments”, to compensate for biases.

She added that employees were likely honest about their experiences, as the surveys were conducted by UTS rather than Unilever, and the university made the data it collected anonymous before sharing it with the company.

A six-month pilot program run by 4 Day Week Global that covered 73 organisations in Britain has also shown positive results for the four-day workweek.

At the UK program’s halfway point, companies were sent questionnaires to capture their experience. Of the 41 companies that responded, 88 per cent said the shorter week was working “well”; 46 per cent said productivity had stayed the same; 34 per cent said it had “improved slightly”; and 15 per cent said it had “improved significantly”.

Occupation lists could be scrapped and replaced with income thresholds to promote more skilled migration using employer-sponsored visas, under a proposal put forward by the Productivity Commission.

In a new report, the commission cites a proposal from the Grattan Institute that would replace skills lists with a universal wage threshold of $70,000 per annum, which tends to cover “highly skilled occupations”.

“Overall, lists of occupational skill shortage tend to be broad, static, costly, and restrictive,” the report says.

The report also warns that Australia risked losing its attractiveness as a destination for skilled migrants as other nations took steps to lure workers.

“The composition of Australia’s skilled migration intake is a key determinant of productivity growth,” Commissioner Lisa Gropp said.

Productivity is the most important metric for living standards over the long term. It accounted for more than 80 per cent of national income growth over the past 30 years and is the dominant factor in driving real wages.

The year 2020 topped off the worst decade for productivity growth in more than 50 years, which lowered wages growth and, without correction, will hold back national income.

The Productivity Commission will release its sixth interim report as part of a broader five-yearly review. The latest release investigates how workers can boost productivity.

A key finding of the report was that Australia’s migration settings “are overly restrictive and prevent skills matching”, which make them a risk for productivity growth, particularly at a time when unemployment is at a near 50-year low of 3.5 per cent and global competition for skills is fierce.

The report suggests that first steps to reform the system should include removing list-based restrictions on employer-sponsored temporary skilled migration above a suitable income threshold.

The same should be done for workers wanting to transition from temporary to permanent visas.

Grattan Institute economic policy program director, Brendan Coates, has previously argued that “jobs, and the wages they offer, are a better guide to skills than occupations”.

However, the commission warned against stopping access for lower-paid occupations, particularly in the areas of human services such as disability and aged care, and in areas that rural and regional areas struggle to attract.

“The composition of the migrant intake could be improved by replacing occupational lists as the basis for skilled migration, in favour of other mechanisms such as a sufficient income threshold,” the report said.

Though it added that “it would be valuable to retain access to temporary skilled migration and employer sponsorship for many such occupations”.

The commission also took aim at the National Skills Commission’s definition of a worker shortage, which is currently based on businesses not being able to attract workers at the current “prevailing wage”.

“This is in contradiction to the concept of an efficient labour market that allows offers of wages and conditions to adjust in order to attract workers, based on the value those workers bring to the business,” the report said.

“Indeed, skill shortages should be identified where employers have difficulties in hiring in the context of wage increases over time rather than ‘at current levels’.”

Based on the existing definition, the number of occupations where workers were deemed to be in short supply jumped more than 85 per cent from 153 to 286 over the past year.

Underlying inflation is set to surge above 6 per cent in the September quarter, the fastest pace since December 1990, according to the latest National Australia Bank business survey.

NAB group chief economist Alan Oster said a result of that magnitude would indicate a considerable acceleration and broadening of inflation in Australia that would ultimately put pressure on interest rates.

But in an early “tentative” sign of relief for businesses and consumers, growth in labour and material input cost eased for a second straight month after hitting a record in July.

“We still expect a very strong quarter three [consumer price index] print given the elevated levels of costs and prices over recent months, [and] we continue to expect CPI to peak quarter four,” Mr Oster said.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s push to curb inflation with a sixth straight interest rate rise in October drove consumer confidence to near historic lows, according to Westpac, though it would have been worse.

A record 900,000 Australians have taken on more than one job, as workers wanting extra hours take advantage of a labour market flush with vacancies and cost of living pressures mount.

About 6.5 per cent of employed people are working more than one job, according to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday and workers in low-paid industries like arts, hospitality and administration recorded the highest levels of multiple-job holding.

The surge in multiple job holding comes just one day before the August jobs survey, which economists expect to show another 35,000 people gained work last month as the unemployment rate held steady at a 48-year low of 3.4 per cent.

Indeed economist Callam Pickering said the increase in multiple job holding was a consequence of both the strong labour market and rising prices forcing some people to take on more work.

“First, there are a lot of jobs available and therefore plenty of opportunities to take on another job if you want more hours,” Mr Pickering said.

“Second, cost-of-living pressures have likely created the need for some people to take on additional work to keep their heads above water.”

JPMorgan chief economist Ben Jarman said he thought the increase in multiple job holding was more likely a choice made by households than a response to cost of living pressures.

“Since almost all sectors have very high vacancies right now, if those with multiple jobs were pursuing income alone, they would presumably ask for more hours at the higher paying role and get them,” Dr Jarman said.

“So there must be some other factors at play for households – selecting the hours they want and the time of day or week they want, [and] diversity of work.”

University of Melbourne economist Jeff Borland said the fact multiple-job holding was increasing at the same time as underemployment was falling suggested part-time workers who wanted more hours were able to find them thanks to a boom in job vacancies.

“It’s a combination of the long-term growth in part-time employment and the labour market being so strong at the moment,” Professor Borland said.

“People who are working less hours than they want are able to get close to the hours they want by taking multiple part-time jobs.”

While falling underemployment was welcome news, Professor Borland said there were difficulties for workers who needed to juggle multiple part-time jobs.

Indeed’s Mr Pickering said the number of people working more than one job would continue to grow.

“The unfortunate reality is that many lower-income households are doing it tough and many will consider additional work to ease those cost pressures,” he said.

Almost 9 per cent of workers in the arts industry hold multiple jobs, compared to 4.2 per cent of workers in the financial services sector.

During the election campaign, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pointed to increasing rates of multiple-job holding as evidence of insecure work.

“They are not doing that out of choice, they are doing that to try to get by and that is why one of the things we need to do is to address wages,” he said in May.

ACTU secretary Sally McManus said on Wednesday the figures showed people were being “forced to string together multiple jobs in order to pay the bills”.

“This problem has been exacerbated by employers slicing and dicing what were once full time, permanent jobs into multiple, insecure, outsourced, low-paid jobs. Australia can do so much better than this,” she said.

The first rise in the jobless rate in 10 months has complicated the outlook for the Reserve Bank, as the central bank balances a desire to ease the pace of tightening to avoid inflicting a hard landing against global forces pushing rates higher.

Markets are pricing a 50 per cent chance the RBA will raise rates by another half a percentage point at its next board meeting on October 4, which was down only slightly from 56 per cent on Wednesday.

The unemployment rate inched higher to 3.5 per cent in August, up from 3.4 per cent in July, as a lift in labour force participation and a small increase in the number of unemployed people offset modest employment gains of 33,500, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said.

While some economists said the lift in unemployment increased the likelihood the RBA would raise rates by 0.25 percentage points next month, others warned ongoing super-sized rate increases by global central banks may force the RBA to continue lifting rates by 0.5 percentage points to fend off a fresh bout of imported inflation.

The central bank has delivered four consecutive 50 basis point rate increases, but governor Philip Lowe signalled last week the board could ease up from October, depending on incoming data. Data on retail trade and job vacancies for August are due late this month.

Capital Economics economist Marcel Thieliant said the first increase in the unemployment rate since last October will push the RBA to lower the pace of interest rate rises next month.

“Another sign that the labour market has lost momentum is hours worked, which remain below their peak in March despite a 0.8 per cent increase last month,” Mr Thieliant said.

Full-time employment jumped by 58,800 in August, offsetting a drop of 25,300 in part-time employment, the statistics office said.

Economists had expected modest gains of 35,000 after employment declined unexpectedly by 40,900 in July.

The number of unemployed people increased by 14,000 in August, but is 21 per cent lower than the same time last year.

The participation rate reversed part of its losses from July, edging up 0.2 of a percentage point to 66.6 per cent, meaning two in three adults are either in work or seeking employment.

The lift in participation outstripped modest employment gains and pushed the unemployment rate higher to 3.5 per cent from July’s near-50-year low of 3.4 per cent.

About 761,000 employed people worked fewer hours than usual due illness in August, a 73 per cent increase on last year, before the spread of omicron caused daily COVID-19 case numbers to explode.

While he welcomed low levels of unemployment, Treasurer Jim Chalmers said it was not the only measure that mattered.

“Our nation needs to do a better job at reducing barriers to employment so that all Australians have the opportunity to participate to their full potential,” he said.

BetaShares chief economist David Bassanese said the August figures were not a “smoking gun” to justify another half-percentage-point rate rise in October.

“The gains in August only partly made up for the losses in July, resulting in no net new employment growth for two months,” he said.

But Mr Bassanese conceded the global outlook could force the central bank to deliver another 50-basis-point increase in October.

“If the US Federal Reserve decides to raise interest rates by a full 1 per cent at next week’s policy meeting, as is possible after this week’s higher than expected US CPI result, the RBA may feel inclined to at least keep the next rate hike at 0.5 per cent so as to lessen both downward pressure on the Australian dollar and upward pressure on imported inflation,” he said.

Markets are pricing a 37 per cent chance the US Federal Reserve will lift rates by 1 percentage point next week after the shock inflation result. The US economy has not seen a 1 percentage point rate rise since May 1981.

RBC chief economist Su-Lin Ong said the RBA would probably raise rates by 0.25 percentage points next month, but global factors made her “a little uncomfortable” with the call.

“Continued outsized moves by the global central banking community will keep pressure on the RBA to deliver another 50 basis point hike despite arguments to begin to temper the pace of tightening and the governor’s recent hints on this front,” she said.

BIS Oxford Economics head of macroeconomic forecasting Sean Langcake said the slowdown in employment growth suggested the labour market was reaching full capacity.

“These capacity constraints are expected to drive wage growth higher, although this process has been very sluggish to date,” he said.

Mr Thieliant said it was possible the national jobless rate could head lower in future months.

“Business surveys are consistent with employment growth at similar levels as last month, while the working-age population is growing by less than 20,000 per month,” he said.

“Barring further rapid increases in the participation rate, labour demand should therefore continue to outpace labour supply.”

In a sign of strength, the underemployment rate fell further to 5.9 per cent, as workers wanting extra hours or a second gig take advantage of a labour market flush with vacancies.

A record 900,000 Australians, or 6.5 per cent of employed people, have taken on more than one job. Workers in low-paid industries like arts, hospitality and administration recorded the highest levels of multiple-job holding.

Markets are pricing further increases in the cash rate as the RBA tries to take heat out of the labour market and reduce inflation, which is tipped to hit 7.8 per cent by the end of the year.

Forecasters expect the cash rate to hit 3.2 per cent by the end of the year, before peaking at 3.7 per cent in April 2023.

Last week, Dr Lowe said he expected further falls in unemployment, before the central bank’s most aggressive rate rising cycle in almost three decades caused the economy to cool from the end of this year.

The central bank predicts unemployment will start to rise from mid-2023, reaching 4 per cent by the end of 2024.

Australia’s red-hot jobs market is expected to have tightened further in August, with forecasters tipping Thursday’s labour force survey will show 35,000 more workers found jobs last month as the unemployment rate held at a 48-year low.

Economists say a stronger result would encourage the Reserve Bank to lift rates by another 0.5 of a percentage point next month, despite signalling it is considering lowering the size of future rate rises to 0.25 percentage points.

Markets forecast another 35,000 people gained jobs in August, after an unexpected 40,900 decline in July. The participation rate is expected to inch higher to 66.5 per cent, while the unemployment rate is tipped to remain steady at 3.4 per cent.

Commonwealth Bank associate economist Harry Ottley expects the “strange movements” in the July survey to partially unwind, tipping a 35,000 jump in employment and a small lift in the participation rate.

RBA governor Philip Lowe said on Tuesday he expected unemployment to decline further, before the central bank’s most aggressive rate rising cycle in almost three decades caused the economy to cool from the end of this year.

The Albanese government’s jobs summit needs to brainstorm ideas for putting Australia at “the top of the charts” for globetrotting workers, top executives say, and some warn they are holding back on committing money to big projects due to labour shortages.

“We’ve got to get Australia back to the top of the charts in terms of where people want to come and work,” said Coles chief executive Steven Cain. “Every business that I speak to is seeing increasing churn levels.”

Demand for technology workers is so high that Coles, which is trying to cut costs and make its online shopping operations more efficient, is using workers located overseas for some work that it would usually do in Australia and carefully prioritising projects, Mr Cain said.

Rob Scott, head of the nation’s second-largest employer, Wesfarmers, said the WA-based conglomerate was finding it tough to fill jobs ranging from construction and engineering to skilled buyers in its retail businesses.

“Any role in technology and data and digital [is hard to fill],” he said. “Some of the skilled designer roles and buyer roles in retail are hard to come by. And it’s not just skilled labour – if you look at a lot of regional areas and small businesses are really struggling,.

“Cafes, restaurants, hospitality, tourism businesses, particularly in regional areas, are struggling. That doesn’t have a direct impact on our businesses, but it has an indirect impact because a lot of those small businesses are customers of Bunnings, Kmart and Officeworks.”

Mr Scott on Friday urged the government to consider more immigration and said that due to the skilled labour shortage and higher costs, it was difficult for the $54.7 billion Wesfarmers group to commit to key projects such as doubling the capacity at its Mount Holland lithium mine.

Suncorp CEO Steve Johnston also singled out technology experts, particularly digital specialists, as the hardest workers to find due to strong competition for them in Australia. “I think all companies are focused on digital-type activities,” he said.

To try to attract people to join the company, Suncorp has told prospective employees that they could help rebuild the nation’s east coast after severe floods when it was recruiting about 1000 people for recovery projects.

“The big differentiator these days is … purpose,” Mr Johnston told The Australian Financial Review.

AGL Energy CEO Graeme Hunt is also having difficulty finding people with technology skills.

“At AGL we have a diverse workforce and, like many businesses, one of the challenges at the moment is recruiting people in the technology and cybersecurity areas,” he said. “These areas are always highly competitive areas, and we’re finding this is the case now more than ever.”

At Nuix, CEO Jonathan Rubinsztein says the group’s specialist software services help it attract technology architects and that hiring people is becoming easier as the economy weakens and start-up companies scale back.

Global reach

Dig Howitt, CEO of medical device group Cochlear, said it was not surprising that finding people with data, digital tools and software skills was difficult given the shift to a more virtual and connected world.

“We’re fortunate that we do have a global reach and we can hire outside of Australia,” he said.

Paul Perreault, boss of biotech group CSL, said finding good scientists and researchers was always hard. “Right now we’re looking for experts in vaccinology because we’re expanding the flu business with our new products.”

The company’s seasonal influenza vaccine sales surged 16 per cent, hitting a record volume of 135 million doses distributed and propelling US vaccine sales above the $US1 billion threshold for the first time.

CSL also needs people specialised in therapeutic goods, including nephrology and implants.

In the engineering and construction industry, contractors have been struggling to find enough workers to build an enormous pipeline of infrastructure projects.

Downer EDI CEO Grant Fenn supports an increase in skilled migration. He says the company, which provides services from running Melbourne trams to fixing roads and building wind farms, usually has about 2000 jobs vacant but now has more than 3000 jobs open.

These include people with electrical skills who can work on energy networks. “These are difficult skills to introduce because you’ve got to be accredited,” Mr Fenn said.

To fulfil its commitments, Downer has asked some staff to work longer hours and is paying overtime, and is also using more labour-hire agencies and subcontractors.

Monadelphous CEO Rob Velletri said the Perth-based engineering group was going to be more selective in the contracts it took on and prioritise projects that provided secure, long-term returns because “there’s more work to do than people that are available”.

The company employs almost 8000 people including subcontractors and labour is its biggest cost. It is trying to hire people locally to reduce its reliance on fly-in, fly-out workers and improve the productivity of existing employees.

Flexible working

But while the federal government is expected to increase the permanent migration cap to 200,000 places from 160,000 in its October budget to help fill jobs, Mr Velletri said the forecast increase would not be sufficient to end labour shortages.

Cement manufacturer Adbri is also struggling to find workers and has 100 vacancies across its business, according to CEO Nick Miller.

Kevin Gallagher, CEO of oil and gas producer Santos, said companies were having to pay more attention to their working environments, including flexible working policies and office fit-outs, to find and retain staff.

This is in addition to managing ongoing disruption in workforces due to people isolating with COVID-19, he said.

“It comes back to not trying to do all your projects at once because you’ve got to staff effectively and stay focused on your delivery, your execution,” Mr Gallagher said.

Intellectual property services group IPH is making more of an effort to explain why workers should join the firm, says CEO Andrew Blattman.

“Professional services in Australia or anywhere in the world is becoming harder in terms of people’s career opportunities,” he said.

“The track towards what was the corner office and partner [is lengthening] What was five years becomes 10, becomes 15. But we can use the equity, the public markets, the IPO as part of that story.”

Transurban chairman Lindsay Maxsted said that while skills shortages were not getting any worse, they were not getting any better either.

Low unemployment meant Australia could absorb more migrants, Mr Maxsted said. “I think we can deal very positively with an influx of immigration ... there’s room for everybody.”

Salaries for jobs advertised on online hiring platform Seek surged 4.1 per cent in July compared to a year earlier, adding to wide-ranging evidence that wages are picking up strongly in the second half of the year.

Seek’s inaugural Advertised Salary Index measuring the growth in salaries across the 200,000 listings posted each month suggests that the ultra-low 3.4 per cent unemployment rate is forcing employers to offer fatter pay packets to secure workers.

The higher pay rises for people switching jobs is happening across a wide range of white and blue-collar industries, for lower end and higher end jobs.

Advertised salaries for designers and architects jumped 7.3 per cent to an average of almost $90,000 over the last 12 months, while information and communication technology pay rose 6.2 per cent to an average of $130,000 annually.

Advertised salaries for mining, resources and energy salaries increased 5.7 per cent to $126,783, real estate pay jumped 5.7 per cent to $81,081, manufacturing, transport and logistics rose 5.2 per cent to $69,197, accounting was up 4.9 per cent to $90,993, and marketing and communications increased 4.7 per cent to $93,693.

Job ad salaries for tradies rose 6.1 per cent to $71,797 and administrative and office support workers’ pay increased 5.8 per cent to $63,516.

The survey, to be launched on Monday, is an indicator of future wage growth.

The Seek data for the new financial year in July is more recent than the official Australian Bureau of Statistics wage price index which showed wages rising modestly for all workers by 2.6 per cent in the June quarter.

Seek senior economist Matt Cowgill said it was “clear” wages and salaries were picking up.

“Competition for talent is fierce, with the unemployment rate at a near 50-year low. The pick-up in advertised salary growth has been broad-based. Most types of jobs are seeing annual advertised salary growth greater than 3 per cent,” he said.

The data adds to evidence that wages growth is picking up.

The minimum wage and award wages rose between 4.6 per cent and 5.2 per cent for 2.7 million workers in July.

For the 15 per cent of workers who scored a pay rise in the June quarter, the average increase was a healthy 3.8 per cent (excluding a superannuation increase), the highest since the mining investment boom in 2012, according to the ABS.

Adding in the 0.5 of a percentage point increase in the superannuation guarantee to 10.5 per cent from July, these bonus-and-commission-incentivised workers received a 4.3 per cent remuneration increase.

Compelling evidence

State governments have also lifted their public sector pay caps.

The Reserve Bank of Australia’s business liaison program suggests that more than half of employers will award pay increases of more than 3 per cent over the next 12 months, while the National Australia Bank business survey, business leaders and union pay claims are also pointing to bigger wage rises.

Business Council of Australia chief economist Stephen Walters said: “Wages are increasing and there is a lot of compelling evidence that wages are going to be picking up over the next six to 12 months.”

When companies list an ad on Seek they include a salary range for the position (which may or may not be visible to the candidate), giving the job site a wide cross-section of data across industries, seniority and geography.

Advertised salaries grew across all states and industries in the 12 months to July 2022, with the lift in advertised salaries likely to precede a broader increase in wages growth across the economy.

The public service, healthcare, and education and training experienced slower growth in advertised salaries.

“Government and industries where there is strong government involvement, either as an employer or indirectly as a funder, are tending to see lower growth and advertise salary,” Mr Cowgill said.

While Seek’s ASI and the ABS wage price index were on a similar trajectory before the pandemic, Mr Cowgill noted the advertised salaries tended to fluctuate more than the ABS wages measure.

“If you think through from the perspective of an employer, you’re much more able to adjust salary – in both directions – that you are offering for new starters than you are to adjust the wages for existing staff,” Mr Cowgill said.

“When things change, like the unemployment rate has been on kind of a roller-coaster the last few years, advertised salaries are much quicker to adjust to those changes in the labour market in the economy than overall wages.”

‘Apples with apples comparison’

When the pandemic hit, growth in advertised salaries slowed rapidly, nearing zero and started growing more rapidly in mid-to-late 2021, as the economy reopened.

The survey is an “apples with apples” comparison of pay by monitoring salaries for the same types of advertised jobs over time.

The data will be released monthly, more frequently than the quarterly ABS wage price index.

Advertised salaries grew the fastest in the Northern Territory (5 per cent), followed by Western Australia (4.9 per cent), Tasmania (4.8 per cent) and Queensland (4.7 per cent).

South Australia (1.9 per cent) and the ACT (1.8 per cent) were the only two states or territories to record relatively modest advertised salary growth.

The national gender wage gap is currently sitting at 14.1 per cent – a 0.3 percentage point increase over the past six months. To mark Equal Pay Day, HR can lead conversations about ‘remuneration levelling’ to end this disparity.

The latest wage earnings and conditions report from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that men are still out-earning their female counterparts by approximately $264 per week. 

According to the recently released figures, which are up-to-date as of May 2022, the average male public servant was bringing in $2,075 each week, compared to $1821 for female counterparts. The private sector told a similar story, with men earning $1835, while women earned $1,523.

The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) says women would have to work an extra 60 days following the end of the financial year (June 30) to match the salaries of their male colleagues. That’s why it’s marking 29th August as Equal Pay Day.

It’s troubling, but it’s not surprising. This is a tale as old as time. As former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark stated at AHRI’s Convention, the decade-long struggles women have faced to achieve equality was exacerbated by the pandemic.

“The World Economic Forum has said that pre-pandemic it would have taken 100 years to reach full gender equality. They’re now saying 132 years. As an overarching figure, that’s quite disturbing,” Clark said at the time.

This has led to what some people are labelling a ‘pink recession’. Research from the Grattan Institute shows that more women lost jobs than men during COVID-19 (8 per cent compared to 4 per cent). Women were also more likely to take on unpaid domestic work and less likely to receive government support during lockdowns, due to working on casual contracts or in volatile industries.

“Many Australian women have to work harder to make ends meet with very little room for discretionary spending or saving once they’ve covered the cost of daily essentials,” says Mary Wooldridge, WGEA Director, in a press release.

We also need to make these industries more appealing to female talent, she adds. 

“There needs to be a concerted effort to make the technology and cybersecurity professions more enticing to young women and girls.

“STEM needs to become available to girls early in their school curriculum, and cybersecurity needs to become more accessible as a whole. The latter requires more understanding and opportunity at a grassroots level to not only level the gender playing field but to address a rapidly growing skills gap.”

“It’s difficult to believe a gender pay gap still exists in 2022, but organisations have to take action. Words are not enough. The pace of change has been so slow.” – Alex Pusenjak, Global VP, People & Culture at Fluent Commerce

There are myriad ways to do this, but Jayne suggests setting up mentoring programs to help nurture up-and-coming female talent and “make the industry more inclusive and far less daunting for young women”.

“This is necessary not only to make women feel like the technology industry is a good fit for them, but to give them more confidence when it comes to salary and role negotiations. Women are increasingly finding their footing in the technology sector, but there remain legacy issues that should be dealt with today to eliminate gender from every technology conversation.”

Remuneration levelling

Alex Pusenjak, Global Vice-President of People and Culture at Fluent Commerce, an order management tech platform, says you need to embed a culture of belonging at work in order to truly walk the talk of gender equality.

“The first step… is to educate your leadership team on what it is and why it’s important before you get to the how,” he says.

“It’s important to make the ‘business case’ for diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB), so it’s baked into everything from the beginning. That way the accountability lies with everyone, rather than trying to create a program and implementing it on your own.”

“Many Australian women have to work harder to make ends meet with very little room for discretionary spending or saving once they’ve covered the cost of daily essentials.” – Mary Wooldridge, Director, WGEA

Once this is done, Pusenjak says it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work – remember, done is often better than perfect.  

“You can waste time creating a complicated program that ultimately doesn’t see the light of day. Or, you can jump in and start somewhere. What helps you do this is to take a barometer reading of where the organisation is in relation to DEIB. Employee engagement surveys are a great way to do this.” 

Fluent Commerce started its process of “remuneration levelling” in July 2021. It was critical that the team eliminated biases that would impact decisions, so Pusenjak and his team removed everyone’s personal details from their systems.

“We didn’t know whether a person identified themselves as male or female. We could then compare their salaries to others in similar roles in their respective countries. This resulted in ‘levelling up’ a number of people in roles, across the US, Europe and Australia. We have committed to doing this process company-wide twice a year.”

Fluent Commerce has also committed to incremental salary bumps throughout the year.

“For example, if one of our senior leaders knows someone in their team is being targeted on LinkedIn by other companies, we can respond and remunerate accordingly.” 

Level the playing field

If you want to start taking steps to offer more equitable salary packages, Pusenjak suggests forming a DEIB resource group made up of your employees.

“[That group is] tasked with proactively working on positive initiatives to create lasting and meaningful change. 

“Our Employee Resource Group has been in place now for 18 months and has successfully implemented a range of measures, including our Work180 employer endorsement, an education campaign about pronouns and the promotion of nine women across the business in the past nine months.”  

Sometimes the best way to move the needle is to partner with organisations that live and breathe the values you’re trying to instil.

“If your organisation is committed to gender equity and provides a flexible and supportive environment for men and women, seek out organisations to partner with that align with your values. For us, those organisations are ‘Girls in Tech’ – [who] use our office space in Sydney to host  events – and Work180, [which has] endorsed us as a great workplace for women.”

Finally, while days such as Equal Pay Day and International Women’s Day can spark broader conversations, these discussions need to happen year-round.  

“It’s difficult to believe a gender pay gap still exists in 2022, but organisations have to take action. Words are not enough. The pace of change has been so slow,” says Pusenjak. 

“DEIB isn’t an issue for the CEO or senior leadership team to ‘resolve’ – it’s everyone’s responsibility. Systems and processes have to be adopted where everyone has accountability to ensure employees are being remunerated fairly and equally, regardless of their gender, and this needs to be assessed at regular intervals to enable real change to be made.”

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says improving access to childcare to boost women’s participation in the workforce is the most important topic of the federal government’s two-day jobs and skills summit.

“[It is] is perhaps the biggest lever that we can pull, the biggest contribution that we can make to economic prosperity,” he said.

Women’s workforce participation will be central to discussions at the two-day summit, which has brought together more than 140 business leaders, unions and interest groups in Canberra.

While the federal government has committed to expanding cheaper childcare from July 1 next year, it has so far resisted pressure to bring forward the subsidies.

Andrews said 26,600 women in Victoria alone were locked out of the workforce because of a lack of access to childcare, which cost the state economy $1.5 billion a year. The number of women working reduced hours was even greater, he said.

“Better early childhood education, dealing with childcare deserts, making childcare work for working families, has never been more important – not just because it’s the right thing to do, but it’s the smart thing to do,” the premier said. 

“There’s probably no greater economic opportunity for us as a nation in getting this right.”

Andrews said Victoria was doubling the amount of free play-based learning access for preschool children in a bid to help give parents better access to early learning.

Minister for Finance and Women Katy Gallagher said the government “furiously agrees” that women’s economic equality needed to be addressed, and had started some of that work including by introducing paid domestic violence leave and its childcare plans.

“Over the next two days, in every discussion and for every solution, we should be looking at how we unlock the talent and potential of Australian women and remove barriers for all of them,” she said.

“There’s a big opportunity, lots of challenges, but I also think we just have to get cracking on it, so thanks very much everyone for participating.”

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has said there have been discussions about starting the policy earlier than July 1, but despite the boost to the economy, it would also put immediate pressure on the budget.

“There is a massive multiplier effect investing in childcare. But the way that the budget rules are set up mean that we account for the cost, but not for the benefit,” he said.

Alison Kitchen, national chairwoman of KPMG Australia, said KPMG was one of the many voices calling for the government’s paid parental leave scheme to be extended to 26 weeks to help boost women’s participation.

“We are not taking full advantage of women’s economic contributions to work,” she said.

ACTU president Michele O’Neil said Australia’s current limited paid parental scheme and costly childcare needed to change. Boosting women’s workforce participation was good for men as well as women, she said.

“We shouldn’t be frightened of change. We should just get on with it,” she said.

Sam Mostyn, president of Chief Executive Women and newly announced head of the government’s Women’s Economic Equality Taskforce, noted there were links between sexual violence and women’s workforce participation. She said the recommendations in the Respect@Work report on workplace sexual harassment should be a foundation for improving workplace culture.

Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins said the discussions about safety and respect in workplaces had given her chills as well as “hope and optimism” that change would happen.

“We’re not having to argue why we need more women in the workplace,” she said.