Back in 2017, the independent Fair Work Commission made the decision to cut Sunday and public holiday penalty rates for people working in the retail, hospitality, fast food and pharmacy industries.

The cuts were to be phased in over three years, starting July 2017.

Some business groups were pushing hard for the rate cut, saying the existing rates were onerous and prohibited them from putting on more staff.

"This is a good decision for the community, for employees and for employers. And when I say employees, I mean the ones that don't have a job at the moment who'll now have the opportunity to work on Sunday," Peter Strong from the Council of Small Business Australia said.

Skip Twitter Tweet FireFox NVDA users - To access the following content, press 'M' to enter the iFrame.

So did those jobs ever materialise? Nope.

"There was no significant increase in jobs outcomes before the penalty rate cuts compared to after the penalty rates cut," Dr Martin O'Brien from the University of Wollongong told Hack.

Dr O'Brien and a colleague from Macquarie University decided to test the claim by employers that penalty rate cuts would create jobs.

They looked at jobs figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) one year after the cuts came into place, and then again the following year. They found no noticeable difference in either case.

They also decided to test if there existing employees were getting more Sunday shifts.

There had been no increase to the proportion of people working Sundays or public holidays.

"For those already working Sundays or public holidays, [there was] no increase in their hours on those particular days. There were no increase in average hours worked [altogether]," Dr O'Brien said.

But jobs figures alone don't tell the whole story, so Dr O'Brien decided to just ask employers if they were hiring more workers.

"We found consistent results from owner-managers from within the retail and hospitality that there was no discernible increase in outcomes," he said.

Why did this happen?

Before you picket your local cafe, it's best to consider the circumstances that have led to this.

At the same time as it cut penalty rates, the Fair Work Commission increased minimum wage by 3.3 per cent - one of the biggest increases in years.

"When that first penalty rate cut came through, there were a lot of workers who would have actually been earning more money because the increase in minimum wage that was announced on the same day as the penalty rate cut would have outweighed the weekend penalty rate cuts," Dr O'Brien said.

That might have changed employers' capacity to hire more staff.

"The argument from the employers point of view is that there weren't really the cost savings that were expected [from penalty rate cuts]," Dr O'Brien said.

Then there's the fact that the economy hasn't exactly been booming.

Skip Twitter Tweet FireFox NVDA users - To access the following content, press 'M' to enter the iFrame.

Economic data released earlier this week found that economic growth for the last quarter was just 0.5 per cent, and 1.4 per cent for the previous year. That's the slowest growth since the Global Financial Crisis ten years ago.

When times are tough, people keep their wallets closed. That means discretionary spending - on things like nights out, takeaway, cars and furnishings - goes down.

Industries like hospitality depend on discretionary spending, and when that's down, they're unlikely to hire more workers.

"Walk down any street, any laneway, and you'll see more closed restaurants than you did five years ago. Wes Lambert from the Restaurant and Catering Industry association told Hack.

He wants the Fair Work Commission to revisit penalty rate cuts in the wake of new economic circumstances.

"I'm hopeful that things will change for the benefit of all Australians. Because if there's no business there, there's no wage to earn," Wes said.