Social Services Minister Christian Porter has criticised community sector employers for hiring staff in permanent positions knowing that their government contract had an end date.

The comment in a letter to Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia has sparked an angry response from the Australian Services Union which accused the Minister of suggesting community sector workers should all be employed in insecure work.

Australian Services Union NSW branch secretary Natalie Lang.

The rape and domestic violence service recently lost a major government contract and needs to find funds for redundancy payments to staff.

Natalie Lang, secretary of the ASU NSW and ACT branch said more than 200,000 social community services workers were employed in non-government organisations that relied on government funding contracts.