Month: May 2007

How satisfied are people with their jobs?

~ Andrew Norton ~ Leave a comment

The youth survey released this week found that 84% of full-time workers and 78% of part-time workers aged 18 to 24 were satisfied with their jobs. 41% said that they were very satisfied (though unfortunately there was no option just to be ‘satisfied’, just ‘very satisfied’ or ‘somewhat satisfied’). How does this compare with workers in general?

Surveys have consistently found high levels of work satisfaction. In the Changing Australian survey of 1983, 49% of respondents said that they were very satisfied with their work and a further 38% were moderately satisfied, with 86% satisfied overall. 14% were a little or very dissatisfied. The National Social Science Survey of 1987-88 asked respondents to rate their work satisfaction on a 1 to 10 scale. If we class 6 or more as moderately satisfied or above then 85% were satisfied, almost exactly the same as the 1983 survey. If 1 to 4 are ‘dissatisfied’ then 9% fell into that category, but if we count those circling ‘5’ as a little dissatisfied again we can get a near exact match with 1983.

In a Saulwick Poll conducted before the 2001 election, 86% were satisfied – again, a very similar number to the other surveys. They separately identified casuals, 21% of whom were dissatisfied compared to 13% of the sample overall. This is quite similar to the division the Newspoll youth survey finds, though whether the problem is the casual work status or the nature of the employment is not clear (many casuals are students, who may find the low-level service jobs they do while studying unstimulating compared to the studies and low-status compared to their aspirations).
Continue reading “How satisfied are people with their jobs?” →

Shock, horror – young people satisfied with their lives

~ Andrew Norton ~ 14 Comments

A Newspoll survey of 18 to 24 year olds, commissioned by the Dusseldorp Skills Forum and reported in today’s Age, would have provided useful extra information for Cassandra Wilkinson’s new book Don’t Panic: Nearly everything is better than you think, a rebuttal of misery merchants like Richard Eckersley and Simon Castles (the Australian Literary Review has an extract from Wilkinson’s book).

Overall, 95% of those Newspoll surveyed regarded themselves as satisfied with their life overall, with nearly half ‘very satisfied’ – not quite in Danish life satisfaction territory, but up there with the Dutch and the Swedes. 88% are confident that things will work out ok in their working lives and careers, and 86% are confident that they will be financially secure. Of those currently in the workforce, 84% of full-timers and 78% of part-timers are satisfied with their job overall. Of those at university, 46% say it is better than they expected, while 15% say they are disappointed. About a third think that their standard of living will be better than that of their parents; most think it will be the same while 9% think that it will be not as good.
Continue reading “Shock, horror – young people satisfied with their lives” →

Tax and don’t spend

~ Andrew Norton ~ 41 Comments

Last week we had an extensive debate on whether tax cuts would be inflationary or not. Over the weekend Newspoll was finding out how many voters buy this line, and the answer seems to be at least 30%. Though both ACNielsen last week and Newspoll this week find 66% of their respondents want a tax cut, Newspoll followed up with this question:

Some economists believe that giving personal income tax cuts in the budget may lead to a rise in interest rates. Given this possibility, would you personally be in favour or against income tax cuts being given in the federal budget?

At which point support for tax cuts dropped to 36%. It seems that Australian public opinion has moved from tax and spend to tax and don’t spend, which is possibly even worse. Winning obscure macroeconomic disputes may be important to attempts to stall Australia’s ever-expanding state.