Underemployment: the de-skilling of young people
By Sean Malloy
With unemployment in Australia at the highest rate in half a century, among 15-19 year-olds it is a massive 31.2%. Bad as this is, it implies a further problem: a similarly large percentage of underemployment. In its own way, this can be as discouraging as complete joblessness.
Part-time and casual work have been increasing over the past decade. According to Access Economics, one quarter of all workers are part-time; a study by Professor Keith Norris of Murdoch University found the same percentage of casual workers in the employed work force in 1990.
Lyle Munro, in the Spring edition of Youth Studies Australia, describes underemployment as either insufficient quantity of hours worked or as insufficient quality of work in terms of skill and job satisfaction.
"For increasing numbers of school leavers underemployment in part-time jobs in the service sector has become the only alternative to unemployment or further study", writes Munro.
Munro argues that the problem of youth unemployment and underemployment does not lie in difficulty moving from a school environment to a working environment. It is due to the fact that full-time job opportunities have declined and that "part-time work is often the only alternative for teenagers to earn money".
"While employment statistics show an optimistic growth in the service industries, they do not reveal the deskilled nature of much of the work which can be realistically described as underemployment."
The article describes how fast food companies, like Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald's, train their staff to develop personal qualities such as neatness and "niceness" to match the corporate image, rather than develop any intellectual or manual skills.
"What is unique about McDonald's is their success in convincing people that burger-making and selling is a skilful business. Underemployment and deskilling are easily disguised by the razzamatazz and hype", notes Munro.
Labelling this kind of employment the "personality market", Munro explains that young people's emotional energy is used to provide service "with a smile" rather than to master skills.
"... the essentially meaningless nature of work in the personality market induces workers to accept a notion of skill based on emotion rather than intellect.
"... at McDonald's, as in the personality market generally, young (personality, youth, energy, gregariousness) to the job which are exploited for profit. Put another way, the [young people] have skills, the jobs do not."