At a time of record high youth unemployment, the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) may seem a blessing: it will require about 70,000 full-time equivalent workers over the next three years, or one in five of all new jobs created.

The catch? Many of those jobs are casual.

Unions and disability service providers are concerned the rollout of the NDIS is building a huge workforce of casuals with not enough training or experience.

They say this is both bad for workers and the clients they are serving.

For Katherine, a 25-year-old support worker for adults with disabilities, being stuck on casual means not being able to apply for a mortgage.

Her partner also works in disability support and together they are contemplating leaving the industry for permanent employment. It's a common enough story in a sector with a high rate of casualisation: according to National Disability Services (NDS), the national peak body for disability service providers, about four in 10 workers are casuals. That compares with an average of about 2.5 in 10 across all industry.

Ken Baker, CEO of the NDS, says the rate is increasing.

"It will likely provide discontinuity of support, elevate cost for employers, and mean fewer experienced workers," he told Hack.

The casualisation of disability support could make the industry less attractive, and this means rollout of the largest social welfare program since the introduction of publicly funded universal healthcare might not attract enough workers.

"By the time the scheme is fully implemented in 2020 we will need about 160,000 full time equivalent jobs - that's a doubling of the workforce over that time," Mr Baker said.

"That's going to be a significant challenge.

"It is not growing fast enough to meet that target."

How the NDIS is driving casualisation

Katherine has been casual now for five years and is employed by a disability services provider in Sydney that has transitioned most of its clients to the NDIS.

The national scheme replaces a patchwork of disability services schemes among states and territories, doubles the funding, and also changes the way support is delivered to clients, giving them more power to choose how the money is spent.

It has meant more financial support for the clients and more work for Katherine, but has also made her employment status less certain.

Clients re-apply for NDIS funding each year. If one of Katherine's clients receive less financial support, she gets fewer shifts.

"It's really changed my role because it's impossible for me to find a full-time job or part-time job within the support role which is frontline direct work with clients," Katherine said.

At the moment a lot of my friends and I find ourselves stuck in a causal role, unable to advance or get further hours because the jobs simply aren't there."

The type of work has also changed.

Under the NDIS, there are broadly two funding streams. There's money that goes to a disability support provider (via the client) for a specified purpose - for example, about $500 per day for short-term accommodation and assistance (the rate changes depending on where you are in the country, the intensity of the assistance, and the day of the week).

Then there's money that goes to the client for "assistance with daily life".

These shifts can be quite short - two hours on a Tuesday morning to be driven to the shops, three hours on a Saturday to help out around the house.

"We have a client in our house who last year was given three hours of one-to-one support and she used it for taking her to an exercise class on a Saturday," Katherine said.

"My boss found it impossible to get someone in for three hours on a Saturday.

"The worker is likely not going to accept the shift for three hours on the weekend when they had to work in the week and had other things to do.

"It's not worth their time financially and therefore my client misses out on getting that support she probably really needs because we are understaffed as it is.

"That's the way it affects both the client and the worker at the same time."

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She says the NDIS has meant more flexible care for clients, and this has been very welcome, but it has also meant support workers have to become more flexible. In employment terms, "flexibility" or "agility" is often code for casualisation and uncertainty.

One manifestation of this is the spread of the "gig economy" into disability support. There are now apps to match clients with support workers, with both sides sharing photos and common interests. The apps cut out the disability support providers and can mean a higher wage for the worker themselves, but they also undercut established providers and contribute to casualisation.

"Often [my partner] will get booked in two weeks in advance three weeks in advance and last minute the family pull the shift because something has changed," Katherine said.

"When this keeps happening he can't foresee what pay he will get next week."

Why can't service providers offer permanent work?

The problem of casualisation in the NDIS can seem a conundrum: workers are in demand but they can't get permanent work.

The reason for this is that the prices the providers or independent contractors can charge clients with disabilities is set by the National Disabilities Insurance Agency (NDIA) - an independent statutory body set up to implement the NDIS.

Service providers generally say the NDIA sets its prices too low. Organisations like the Yellow Bridge not-for-profit, based in Toowoomba, say they cannot afford permanent staff.

Jodie Collins, General Manager of the Disability Support Team with Yellow Bridge, says she's worried the organisation has been losing money.

She says this is partly due to the NDIA's constraints on pricing as well as the burden of extra administration required by the scheme.

"We're very keen to see what our bottom line looks like come this time next year," she told Hack.

Yellow Bridge's money worries has led to casualisation.

"We currently employ 72 support workers and I'd say 10-15 per cent of them are casuals, whereas prior to the NDIS 100 per cent of our workforce was permanent," she said.

Is there a solution?

One solution to the problem of casualisation could be taking the price-setting mechanism away from the NDIA and handing it over to the free market.

This idea is backed by the Productivity Commission - the independent advisory body to the Commonwealth on economic policy - which is also concerned the prices are too low.

In a review of the NDIS released earlier this month it warned of "thin markets"

"There is a risk that, in some areas, or for some types of supports, the market ... will be too small to support the competitive provision of services," the report stated.

That is, there's no incentive for new providers - there's just not enough money in disability support.

But if the NDIA increases the dollars per hour getting paid to workers like Katherine it could blow out the $22 billion annual budget of the NDIS. In its report, the Commission suggests the NDIA could be tempted to keep prices low for this reason: "The Commission is concerned that while ever the price-setting mechanism is held within the NDIA, there is an incentive for it to be used to offset budget pressures. Prices should be set with market development as the primary focus."

Social Services Minister Christian Porter told Hack that "it has always been envisaged that in the longer term prices will be deregulated and determined by market forces."

"In the short term, however, the NDIA is responsible for setting prices for NDIS supports as the market develops and matures. This is designed to ensure that prices balance the requirements to support market growth, respond to specific supply-demand imbalances as they emerge and maintain the financial sustainability of the NDIS."

In June this year, the NDIA announced an independent pricing review after providers complained some services were priced too high and others too low.

Katherine says that unless she can find a permanent position, "at some point down the line" she will have to switch out of frontline disability support work.

"I can't get a job that gives me security to go out and get a loan," she said.

"At some stage I'm going to need those things.

"It is pushing people out who have skills and experience who want to work in the industry.

"We're going to have people coming and moving on a lot faster than we want."