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Beyond the vocational fragments: Creative work, precarious labour and the idea of ‘Flexploitation’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

George Morgan ,
Julian Wood  and
Pariece Nelligan
George Morgan*
Affiliation:
University of Western Sydney, Australia
Julian Wood
Affiliation:
University of Sydney, Australia
Pariece Nelligan
Affiliation:
University of Western Sydney, Australia
*
George Morgan, Institute for Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South, NSW 2751, Australia. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The subjective experience of employment insecurity may be more contradictory than discourses of ‘fragmentation’ and ‘flexploitation’ suggest. For young people seeking careers in creative occupations, the expectation of insecure employment conditions has become normalised. This may be the combined effect of intergenerational changes in the youth labour market generally, and the nature of employment in creative industries at all career stages. The article draws from 80 life history interviews conducted in Western Sydney, Australia, a region with high concentrations of unemployment and low socio-economic status. Their perspectives problematise the common assumption that young creative workers seek to resist insecure patterns of work or long for the stable jobs of the past. Partly, they have accepted the injunction for ‘vocational restlessness’ in their industries. Both in their ‘day jobs’ and in their attempts to get into their chosen part of the creative industry, they feel that not staying in one position too long can be both liberating and adaptive. Union campaigns highlighting the perils of insecurity are unlikely to resonate with them.

Keywords

J63Inequalityjob insecurityprecarious worksociology of workvulnerable workers
Type
Articles
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 24 , Issue 3: Symposium – Precarious work: Economic, sociological and political perspectives , September 2013 , pp. 397 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2013

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