Racism and the labor market in Australia

SYSTEMIC RACISM AND THE LABOUR MARKET IN AUSTRALIA
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SYSTEMIC RACISM AND THE LABOUR MARKET IN AUSTRALIA
Introduction
The discourse on the Australian labour market is intricate and fluid. Labour market is influenced by the interplay of critical factors, including systemic racism, further entrenched by market liberation and decentralization, and labour casualization. With emerging concepts of the 20th century, including neoliberalism ideology that involves economic liberalism and expanding wave of capitalism, the intertwining relationship between the labour market and racial discrimination is getting more sophisticated. Liberal market ideologies entailing increased privatization, globalization, free trade, growing capitalism, deregulation, and expansion of the private sector are impactful to labour markets. Feasible solutions such as policy-making activities would aid alleviated ethnic and racial prejudice within labour markets when efforts are leverage on a deeper understanding of labour market dynamics, including neoliberal ideas.
There is a general desire from various quarters to end the racism that is embedded in the labour markets. The sidelining of the migrant population, minority races, and small ethnic communities in labour markets raise grave concerns. Attempts to address nurture more equitable society in the labour market have factious various challenges emanating from an interplay of various challenges. The policy approach is being touted as one of the impactful solutions to racism in labour markets. The policy initiative geared tow arid addressing the racism m challenges should be inclusive, philosophical, and be alive to the existing realities like neoliberal ideologies. More often, labour markets need to be leveraged on governance which nurtures better coordination and embraces policies that adapt to local needs while encouraging business and civil society participation. According to the Australian Human Rights Commission (2012 pp.10), success in fighting racism can be won through building partnerships to achieve our goals, and taking measures against racism is in everyone’s interest. Policies that encouraged a broader approach to fight racism in workplaces and other sectors should integrated institutions of learning, the media, government organizations, workplaces engagements, online platforms, and sport.
Understanding the root cause of racism within the labour sectors would aid in developing a set of sound policies. The liberal ideologies and decentralization movement makes it difficult to trace and mitigate racial prejudice or discrimination in labour markets. Thus, such emerging movements in the market could pose challenges to any policy that is geared towards the control of racial biases within the confines of labour markets. The Australian population is remarkably diverse. The heterogeneity of the country’s populace increases the propensity for systemic racism, which is modified by rising market liberalization and decentralization of labor markets leading to rising inequity. The Australian labour market is an agglomeration of diverse races partly due to immigration, which makes it exposed to systemic societal bias. The continuous systemic bias or prejudice based on ethnicity, colour, or race has a net negative impact on victims' aspects of life.
Challenges facing Australian labour market
The Australian society's racial challenges primarily trace its roots to emerging liberal tendencies in trade and labour markets. With freer markets, globalization movement, rising capitalism, the possibility of clash pitting a given ethnic racial or ethnic group against another is high. For instance, over the last 25 years, neoliberal philosophies have defined the Australian labour market policies which have been characterized by progressive decentralization where contractual terms e.g. on wages and other work-related conditions, are directly determined between the individual and the employer, rather than nationalized directions (Van Gellecum, Baxter and Western, 2008.pp.45).
The labor market job opportunities are dwindling, while the competition for available limited opportunities is high. The Australian population is among the most diverse group in terms of ethnicity and race. The migration into Australia underpins the problematic labour markets. Australia is one of the countries that have witnessed the migrant population inflow from various points around the globe. Australia’s migrant profile has shifted towards Asia, with India and China providing a large and growing source of migrants to Australia (Biddle,Gray, Herz, and Lo, 2019,pp.2). While first, second, and third-generation migrants to Australia from Asia who are navigating the Australian labour market successfully, Asian-Australians still face many barriers, especially impediment that prevents people from entering the labour market and decrease equitable access to labour market opportunities including senior positions (Biddle, Gray, Herz, and Lo, 2019, pp.2). The problem is magnified by further migration inflow from all parts of the world in the form of skilled occupation visas, student visas, family visas, and working holiday visas. The increasing foreign mobility towards Australian labour markets explains systemic destabilization in labour markets, notwithstanding its positive economic, social, and cultural impact on Australia.
Asian-Australian axis is one of the dimensions that racism, prejudice, and bias are anchored in Australian labor markets. The emerging communities in Australian society's precincts have created racial discrimination that is captured in contemporary Australian politics and shaped by Asian-Australian identities. Stereotypical movements and racial sentiments are shaping the lives and experience of established and emerging Asian-Australian communities. The Asian-Australian axis of racism explains the intricacies surrounding impaired equitable accessibility to opportunities amongst Asian-Australian communities. Asian-Australians are under-represented, under-appreciated, and sidelined, while the mainstream Australian communities appear to enjoy privileged access to market opportunities.
The extent of racism in Australia is of grave concern. Biddle, Gray, Herz, and Lo (2019,pp.3) findings show that up to 81.9 percent of Asian-Australians experienced some form of discrimination, which represented the highest amongst all the self-identified ethnic groups in the study. Thus, it means that racism is a deeply entrenched vice in Australian society. Overall, a significant portion of the Australian population constitutes racial discrimination victims, which takes many forms, including hate talk, assaults, and labour market discrimination. The extent of racism varies from one group to another, with minorities like Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, Asian-Australians, migrants, and refugee’s populations, receiving the highest discrimination in various aspects of life, including labour markets. The 2016 Census results showed that, in Australia, 44% of the working-age Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people aged 15-64 years remain out of the labour force, compared with approximately 23% of the non-Indigenous people (Dinku and Hunt, 2019, pp.2).
Source: Biddle, Gray, Herz, and Lo (2019, pp.3).
The wave of racism has a profound negative impact on the discriminated groups, including constrained efforts in findings housing, job opportunities, and impaired ability to establish connections with the mainstream community. Racism, discrimination, and unjust treatment based on an individual’s or group’s ethnicity negate victims' physical and mental health, economic circumstances, and discriminatory labour practices adversely affect the economy more broadly due to a constrained capacity to exploit talents and ideas within a society (Biddle, Gray, Herz, and Lo,2019,pp.2). Arguably, the class between ethnic identities and the labor market, as contextualized in the racial lens's prism, comes with downsides amidst subtle protest from the perceived mainstream and indigenous communities who feel that the ‘outsiders and foreigners’ are exhausting their opportunities in labour markets.
The labour market is destabilized as ethnic and racial identity's perceptions, views, and attitudes shape the contemporary debates and access to job market opportunities. The concept of ethnic or racial belonging is central when defining labour market dynamics and exploiting arising job market-related opportunities. The theme of racial discrimination elicits behavioral responses in the market that entails how the concept of race defines how individuals behave within the realm of the labour market. People will respond to racial bias in the job market by altering behaviors to evade prejudice and minimize exposure to discrimination, though other negative outcomes may accompany such evasion techniques. Biddle, Gray, Herz, and Lo (2019, pp.4) study findings showed that more than half of Asian-Australians reported changing their behavioral patterns in workplaces in response to racial discrimination.
Neoliberal ideology policy instruments for managing racial bias in labour market
The nexus between the labour market discrimination and liberal ideology remain deep. This observation explains the critical interest in understanding the philosophical foundation underlying Australian policy endeavours in light of market liberalization and globalization. Since the mid-1980s and the 1990s, neoliberalism has been adopted as a critical political philosophy underpinning a great deal of the policy change within the Australian labour market (Van Gellecum, Baxter, J. and Western, 2008.pp.61). This policy shift may partly explain the rise of labour market casualization and the increasing prevalence of part-time job opportunities that lack sufficient remunerations and entitlements.
Is it possible to postulate that casualization, decentralization, and rendering the majority of jobs to be part a result of market liberalism? Are these liberalized jobs with lower numerations and entitlements attracting migrant populations? Arguably, this type of labour market can create a perception s amongst the specific ethnic groups that they are victims of racial or ethnic bias in the labour market. Again, the mainstream dominant groups may often feel entitled to well remunerating and rewarding jobs because they constitute the country's indigenous and majority inhabitants. Could the immigrant population, including the mixed-race groups like Asian-Australian ethics groups and other migrant minorities, pose a threat to job opportunities for dominant or mainstream Australian communities? Arguably, the response from dominant Australian communities to the inflow of foreigners, immigrants, and perceived migrant communities like Asian-Australians through passive aggression as espoused as racial discrimination could imply possible labour market threats from the ‘perceived’ minority ethnic groups.
The receding opportunities in labour markets in terms of employability, rewards, and the prestige associated with job opportunities are partly due to booming market liberalization movements. Such limited opportunities may lead to the casualization of jobs resulting in casual pay loadings which do not commensurate with the job and are not adequately lost entitlements (Baxter, and Western, 2008, pp.59). Immigrants constitute an essential part of the Australian labour force and constitute a significant source of net labour force growth thought they faced various huddles upon arriving in Australia, including finding employment that is...