Australia Desperately Needs Workforce Gender Quotas

It’s obvious that Australia needs to urgently adopt gender-based employment quotas in order to address the growing gender imbalance in our workforce. As the economy begins to struggle out of the self-inflicted disaster of the Wuhan plague, it’s clear that one half of the population is being left behind.

I’m talking, of course, about men.

Women are leading the post-COVID labour market recovery, with new data showing the number of payroll jobs held by females are now above pre-pandemic levels while men continue to lag.

While it’s true that women’s employment fell more dramatically in the first months of the pandemic, they quickly recovered – and soon surged past men. As we move into the post-COVID phase, it’s clear that the new normal is shockingly unequal. Almost 80% of new jobs went to women. Female-dominated sectors are surging, while male-dominated jobs are being left behind.

Healthcare and social assistance is the largest employer of the 19 industries tracked by the [Australian Bureau of Statistics], with a workforce of about 1.8 million and where close to eight in 10 workers are women.

Payroll jobs in this sector are up 3.4 per cent over the past year, roughly the pace of growth one would have expected even without a pandemic, ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jarvis said.

In contrast, in sectors such as construction — the third largest employing sector with about 1.2 million workers and where close to nine in 10 employees are male — there remained 3.5 per cent fewer payroll jobs than when COVID struck.

It was a similar story in manufacturing, where fewer than 30 per cent of about 900,000 workers are women. Payroll jobs in that sector were down 2.7 per cent over the year to late March.

But if you think that the girls are about to give up their unfair privilege, think again. In fact, like female soccer players, they’re demanding more.

The federal government was criticised that its last budget did not contain any measures targeted specifically at assisting women through the crisis.

With the May budget looming, Scott Morrison is under pressure to do more to promote gender equality in the workforce.

The Australian

Which would actually mean hiring men ahead of women. Targeting male job seekers ahead of female. Putting special programs in place in schools (where girls are also the clear winners) to promote equal opportunities for boys.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen. Gender quotas are only ever allowed to work one way.

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