The last 20 years has seen a significant shift from companies utilising full time workers to part-time, casual and especially labour hire personnel. In addition, many companies have structured their operational arrangements in a way which has seen them utilise corporate structures where the workforce is employed by entities separate from the trading entities and those which own the physical assets of the group: so-called ‘captive labour hire’ arrangements. As recently as five years ago, terms such as the ‘gig economy’ had not entered the common vernacular.
The type of arrangements mentioned tend to be more common in the construction, mining and manufacturing sectors where workforce flexibility is essential to maintain company profitability as firms compete for a smaller pool of available work in the post mining boom economy.
These gradual but significant changes in workforce structures have also seen a shift in the risk profiles of companies utilising these arrangements to deliver projects. Anecdotally at least, more transient workforces can lead to increased pressures on safety and workplace systems and potentially greater risks of incident and injury. For companies using labour hire personnel, this may mean that there is an increased chance of those personnel suffering injury or causing injury to others.
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