Diversity and disadvantaged workers

Chapter objectives This chapter will enable readers to understand the: nature of labour market disadvantage and its various categories intersecting nature and changeability of labour market disadvantage connections between disadvantage, industry restructuring and the dismantling of labour market protections implications of labour market disadvantage for workplace relations. Introduction In the second decade of the twenty-first century, the Australian workforce presents an unusual degree of diversity. Race and culture, gender, disability, age, lifestyles and changing family responsibilities are among the key diversity characteristics of an expanding population and labour force. This diversity has been fuelled by sustained mass immigration, the increasing workforce participation of women, the need to retain older and skilled workers and demands for equitable employment participation by traditionally marginalised groups, such as people with disabilities and Indigenous people. In this chapter, the nature and extent of each of these forms of diversity will be addressed, and the implications of this diversity for workplace relations examined. This analysis will also look at the interaction between diversity and disadvantage, and industry restructuring and economic change.