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Defining and deploying the concept of 'precarious employment': Valuable idea or empirical fallacy?
Abstract
The definition.
We define precarious employment as work for remuneration that is deemed more-or-less precarious based on three indicators explicitly related to the regularity of the employment contract:
- the job can be terminated with little or no prior notice from the employer
- working hours and/or earnings are uncertain/irregular
- a contract for ongoing employment is non-existent.
Across different typologies and definitions, job insecurity is the core/essential element (or common denominator) of precarious employment.
Precarious employment, so defined, will be experienced differently by heterogeneous workers who possess different buffers against its insecurity.
Regardless of the subjective experience, workers can objectively be said to be (or not) in precarious employment.
Type
Conference Contribution
Type of thesis
Series
Citation
East, D., Howard, D., Piercy, G., & Cochrane, B. (2025, February 3-5). Defining and deploying the concept of 'precarious employment': Valuable idea or empirical fallacy? [Conference item]. 2025 AIRAANZ Conference: Navigating the Nexus: Politics, Profession, and Practice in Industrial Relations, Conference held at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Date
2025
Publisher
Degree
Supervisors
Rights
Slides from an oral presentation at the 2025 Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ) conference.