Labour force survey

Overview \r\n\r\n ABARES surveyed 600 vegetable, horticulture and cotton farmers in 2015-16 to investigate their use of hired labour, recent recruitment experiences and expected future requirements for labour. \r\n\r\n Key Issues \r\n• In general, labour use (measured by total expenditure and wages as a proportion of total cash costs) is greater in the vegetable, horticulture and cotton industries than in other agricultural industries. However, the large distribution in the amount and type of labour used reflects the diversity of farm types captured by these surveys. \r\n• In the vegetable and horticulture industries, most farm employees are seasonal workers and most of these employees are working in Australia on a visa. In contrast, the cotton industry has more full-time employees, and those workers classified as seasonal are generally Australian or New Zealand residents. \r\n• In 2015-16 most farms did not face challenges filling vacancies or recruiting staff. \r\n• Most farmers indicated that they did not intend to change or would make minimal changes to their businesses over the next five years. However, farmers believed they would need to acquire new skills and knowledge to cope with a changing external environment. \r\n• Farmers saw lower farm business profits and the availability and quality of labour as the greatest workforce challenges facing farm businesses over the next five years. \r\n• Some farms identified the backpacker tax as a potential major workforce difficulty. This was of more concern to horticulture farmers (14 per cent) than to vegetable farmers (6 per cent). None of the cotton farms surveyed indicated that the backpacker tax was a likely future issue. \r\n The survey was conducted before the Government brought in changes to the tax rate applied to working holiday makers (the so called 'backpacker tax'). This survey did not seek to determine farmers' expected labour force responses or losses from changes to the tax. Instead it focused on understanding the current farm workforce. The results from this survey could provide a base case for examining changes in the make-up of the labour force in the future. \r\n

概览

澳大利亚农业与资源经济科学局（ABARES）于2015-2016年间对600名蔬菜、园艺及棉花种植户开展调研，旨在探究其雇佣劳动力使用情况、近期招聘经历，以及未来预期的劳动力需求。

核心议题
• 总体而言，蔬菜、园艺与棉花产业的劳动力投入（以总支出及工资占总现金成本的比例衡量）高于其他农业产业。但劳动力使用规模与类型存在显著分布差异，这反映了本次调研覆盖的农场类型具有多样性。
• 在蔬菜与园艺产业中，绝大多数农场雇员为季节性务工人员，且其中多数持有效签证在澳大利亚境内务工。与之形成鲜明对比的是，棉花产业的全职雇员占比更高，而被归类为季节性务工人员的劳动者通常为澳大利亚或新西兰居民。
• 2015-2016年间，多数农场在填补岗位空缺或招聘员工时未遇到明显困难。
• 多数农户表示，未来五年内无意对经营业务进行调整，或仅会做出极小幅度的改动。但农户们认为，为应对不断变化的外部经营环境，需掌握全新的技能与知识。
• 农户们将农场经营利润下滑、劳动力可获得性不足与质量不佳，视为未来五年农场业务面临的最主要劳动力相关挑战。
• 部分农场认为背包客税（backpacker tax）可能成为重大劳动力难题。其中园艺种植户（占比14%）对此的关注度高于蔬菜种植户（占比6%），而受访的棉花农场均未表示背包客税会成为未来的潜在问题。

本次调研在澳大利亚政府调整打工度假者适用税率（即所谓的‘背包客税’）之前开展。本次调研并未旨在探究农户因税收政策调整而产生的预期劳动力应对措施或相关损失，而是聚焦于了解当前的农场劳动力状况。本次调研的结果可作为未来探究劳动力结构变化的基准案例。