She said she had been unable to get a mortgage or car loan without her parents acting as guarantors. "I would prefer to have permanent work," she said. "It is quite difficult in the public sector especially around the Sydney area. "It means you can't ever say no to being given extra work and you always feel you have to show you are available to the school so they keep giving you contracts. So life-work balance has gone out the door because you need that next year's work.'' The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research at the University of Melbourne has also reported data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, which shows that about 32 per cent of Australian employees were employed on either a casual basis or a fixed-term contract in 2014, with casual workers representing the majority of this group (72 per cent).

The ACTU report lists 108 recommendations to support greater job security, including through the use of government procurement. It calls on the Australian government to recommit to adopting full employment. The Australian Industry Group dismissed the ACTU’s proposals as a collection of 108 "mostly backward-looking thought bubbles, some of which are contradictory, some of which are totally destructive and some of which at face value deserve further consideration". "There is no underpinning cohesion or strategy to create jobs and the promote the economic wellbeing of all Australians – business and households," AIG chief executive Innes Willox said. Innes Willox, chief executive of AI Group. Credit:Stewart Donn Among its recommendations, the ACTU report calls for an end to insecure work in the public sector, "in particular the illegitimate use of fixed-term contracts".

"Fixed-term contracts should only be used to cover on-off periods of relief such as long-service leave or parental leave, or project work that is finite or seasonal in nature," the report says. "Permanency should be the norm in order for public servants to be secure to give the government of the day quality advice and have the capability to provide the public with quality services". The ACTU commissioned Calderon to conduct a poll of 1477 people last week, which found more than three in four Australians agreed with the government spending public money on contractors to create secure jobs instead of the cheapest option. ACTU secretary Sally McManus. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

ACTU secretary Sally McManus said the federal government had the power to make choices to create jobs "but so far they have chosen insecure jobs for working people". "The Turnbull government can choose to spend public money to create good, secure jobs on publicly funded projects, but so far they've chosen the cheapest option," she said. "Our Jobs You Can Count On strategy maps out a course to a better, more inclusive, more prosperous country where wealth is more fairly shared and where people have good, secure work." Workplace Minister Craig Laundy said the proportion of casual employees in the workforce has been steady for the past two decades at around 25 per cent. "Similarly, the use of labour hire is not increasing. It has been steady at around two per cent for some time," he said. "Workers should be more concerned about Bill Shorten’s pact with the militant CFMEU which will give unions unfettered powers to shutdown workplaces, wreck the economy and put jobs at risk."

Barbara Pocock, emeritus professor from the University of South Australia business school and former director of the Centre for Work and Life, said the ACTU jobs report "highlights the failures of current policy, and points to a fairer way forward". Kim Gear has had sleepless nights worrying about the future beyond her one-year fixed contract. The 53-year-old from Melbourne’s eastern suburbs has had a permanent job for most of her career, but has been on a series of contracts for the past three years. She co-ordinates mental health services for people in the community and works for the non-government sector. Kim Gear is a mental health worker from Melbourne. Credit:Joe Armao “I am lucky to have a contract until June next year. Because of the way the NDIS is being rolled out employers can’t be sure how long they can employ people,” she said.

“It makes it hard to plan for the future and there is a fear about whether people will want to employ someone my age or someone younger. “I do have sleepless nights. For me the buck stops with me.” Geoff Harcourt, honorary professor of economics at the University of New South Wales, said "giving top priority to full employment is the moral prerequisite for any just and equitable society". Mr Willox said if the ACTU was genuinely interested in increasing employment "it would start by abandoning its job-destroying proposals for sweeping changes to the Fair Work Act". “The ACTU’s proposals for unions to be given the power to organise strikes across entire industries and supply chains, and for casual employment to be severely limited would obviously have a huge, negative impact on employment. It is little more than a recipe for decreased investment, and a significant increase in unemployment, downsizing and offshoring," he said.

“Ironically, while lip service is given to tripartite plans, there are very few signs of consultation with industry in the development of this manifesto. “The welcome component worthy of merit is the emphasis on training and education."