Both the US and Australian elections are heavily focussed on jobs and workers. And while there are stark differences in how these debates are playing out, the reality of full-time work prospects could define each, writes Greg Jericho.

The Australian election campaign has been rather different to the one being waged in the US. Whereas there the push back on neo-liberal economic policies such as free-trade agreements has been front and centre, here the Liberal Party continues to champion these agreements as a central plank of its jobs and growth strategy.

US and Australian elections are invariably quite different, but this year, even excluding the candidates, the approach toward economic issues has been markedly divergent. While Senator Bernie Sanders never really got close to actually winning the Democratic Party nomination, his candidacy did reflect the very deep discord felt by many American workers at where they find themselves.

Sanders focussed much of his attention on the influence of money in politics, including the ability of big business to influence the outcome of trade deals. The success of this approach saw the presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton adjust and even changed her position on trade deals.

While there are many reasons why Sanders' campaign had the success it did, a quick look at the percentage of American adults in employment over the past 38 years compared to Australians gives some insight as to why there is more scepticism there of standard economic lines than there is here:

Both nations were hit by the GFC (or "Great Recession" as it is known in the northern hemisphere), but in the US just 59.7 per cent of adult are now employed - a level equal with that of 1984. While Australia has also seen a drop off, the current level of 61.1 per cent is equivalent to that of early 2005.

The US is currently suffering a recession deeper and longer than Australia had in the 1990s:

So it is little wonder that many in the US are looking for answers outside of the status quo - whether it be semi-socialist policies of Sanders or the racist demagoguery of Donald Trump.

In Australia part of the fall in the percentage of those employed since the GFC is due to the ageing of the population and due to many of the youth staying in education longer. The ratio of 25- to 64-year-olds in employment is actually better now than when the GFC hit:

But that disguises some pretty major changes and weaknesses in the economy - especially with regards to men.

One of the biggest changes to the employment sector is the decline in growth of male full-time employment. And this goes to the concerns being felt by those in the US. Traditional male-dominated industries are increasingly shifting work offshore.

Consider that there are now 192,000 fewer people employed in manufacturing than there was 15 years ago.

Even since the last election the fall in employment in male-dominated industries is clear:

And even though there has been strong growth in the construction sector (taking up some of the slack from the declining mining sector), wage growth in that industry is one of the weakest.

For these workers, there wasn't a heck of a lot to get excited about when listening to Malcolm Turnbull's speech to the Menzies Research Centre last week on a "A stronger new economy to secure our future".

The Prime Minister opened by noting that:

We are recording strong growth in many sectors: information and telecommunications, tourism, financial services, retail trade and health care.

And his first pitch for how to "ensure longer-term economic security" was to talk up exports, in which he praised "our export trade deals with China, Korea and Japan" and the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Free-trade deals always get a good run in any economic speech by the Prime Minister or the Treasurer, and similarly the conservative media tout them as a marvel of economic reform.

'Tis a pity then the benefits they produce tend to be more theoretical than real.

The Productivity Commission last year concluded of such agreements that the "increase in national income" they produce is "likely to be modest" and that there was "little evidence from business" to indicate they "have provided substantial commercial benefits".

Most damning for politicians such as Turnbull, who in his speech suggested the Korean, Japan and China free-trade agreements were "giving our farmers a competitive edge and higher prices, our tourism sector more visitors, our colleges and universities more students", the PC concluded that the "current processes for assessing and prioritising [such agreements] lack transparency and tend to oversell the likely benefits".

This overselling occurs all the time.

Take, for example, the Prime Minister boasting that "the results are already strong" demonstrated by services exports growing by "14 per cent over the year - the fastest growth since 2000".

Now it is true there has been a spur in growth - mostly off the back of tourism-related services, which account for two-thirds of our services exports:

But what did the China Free-Trade agreement do to lift tourism? Even the boasting at the time the agreement made by then trade minister Andrew Robb was pretty weak. He talked of a "big win" for the tourism sector from the ChaFTA, but the evidence he gave was merely "increased Chinese investment in Australia", and that it "deepens business and education links with China".

Not exactly something that would suggest a mass of new tourists.

For specifics, Robb suggested the ChaFTA would allow "5,000 Chinese work and holiday makers into Australia annually". Given in the past 12 months there has been 1.1 million visitors from China, that's not really a number to get too excited about.

What you could get excited about if you were a tourist operator is that since the middle of 2013 the value of the dollar has gone from $US1.03 to below US$0.75 - a fall of 30 per cent:

And while tourism certainly is a valuable industry, the sector is not a great one for full-time employment. Just 59 per cent of workers in the accommodation sector and a mere 38 per cent of those in the food services sector are employed full-time compared to 69 per cent across all industries.

And fewer than half of its workers are male.

Since the GFC, male employment for 24- to 64-year-olds has grown weakly, with the strongest growth coming from part-time employment:

The reality is there are now fewer men aged between 25 and 64 working full-time than ever before:

And yet that is not a group that gets much attention within the talk of agility and free-trade agreements and the smart economy. In the US that group of workers was largely ignored amidst talk of the wonders of economic benefits from free-trade agreements and improved competitiveness.

It's great to talk of a smart economy, of an agile future, but not everyone is going to be a coder or will work in the tourism industry. And for many male workers, agility and flexibility does not suggest much security for their future employment.

Greg Jericho writes a weekly column for The Drum. He tweets at @grogsgamut. His personal blog is Grog's Gamut.