Job Quality in Australia

The book harnesses a depth of knowledge across all disciplines and is well researched and presented within each field of expertise. … Job Quality in Australia is a foundation work, identifying the challenges and setting the scaffold for further research and discussion. This information can enable us to support our clients, as individuals, drawing from the research as relevant to each client’s own requirements and needs. For those working with policy- makers within government, business and community organisations, this work raises important issues and provides a strongevidencebaseforcurrentresearch and is a thorough, concise handbook of the factors involved in evaluating and discussing Job Quality in Australia. Read full review… - Kendal Drew, Australian Career Practitioner, Spring 2015 This book brings together Australia’s leading researchers of job quality across a range of disciplines. Disciplines covered include law and industrial relations, economics, sociology, psychology, health science and geography. These experts outline current problems with job quality policy and research in Australia, and their perspectives on and proposals for improving that policy and research. The outcome is a book that provides the foundation and impetus necessary for Australia to develop its own research and policy agendas around job quality. - InPrint, Law Institute Journal Victoria, July 2015 Job quality is, in simplistic terms, a consideration of the difference between “good jobs” and “bad jobs”. Little research has been done on job quality in Australia. There is no consensus on what factors indicate that a job is of good quality, and how these factors should be measured. This book aims to raise awareness of job quality as an issue to be placed on Australia’s research and policy agenda. Good quality jobs are said to benefit individual wellbeing, employer productivity and national economic competitiveness. Topics addressed include: how to define and measure job quality; how job quality is currently addressed in Australian labour law; the impacts of poor quality jobs on the individual; and the economics of job quality. In the final chapter the editors provide a roadmap to understand and improve job quality in Australia. - Queensland Law Reporter - 10 July 2015 - [2015] 26 QLR The book covers safety, working hours, welfare, regulations and a whole range of familiar topics but by focusing the researchers on how these factors affect job quality the book provides a fresh perspective on a topic that unites established OHS perspectives into a socio-economic argument of which the OHS profession is in desperate need. Read full review… - Kevin Jones, SafetyAtWorkBlog, June 2015

Angela Knox is an Associate Professor of Work and Organisational Studies at the University of Sydney Business School.

Chris Warhurst is Professor and Director of the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick in the UK.