Only 60 per cent of the Australian workforce is in standard, secure work according to a new report from the ACTU.

The report, Australia’s insecure work crisis: Fixing it for the future, finds that Australia has the third-highest rate of non-standard forms of work in the OECD.

Around 40 percent of all workers have fallen into insecure work, are part-time or on short-term contracts, are employed through a labour-hire firm, the new “gig economy”, or as supposedly “independent” contractors.

Employers often use these forms of work to avoid their legal obligations to their employees, the ACTU report says.

“A full-time, standard employee can expect all the leave entitlements, superannuation contributions and workplace protections that the union movement has fought for over centuries,” it says.

“A labour-hire worker, or someone on a short-term contract, has little bargaining power and takes enormous risk standing up for better rights, as well as having fewer rights than other workers in the first place.”

ACTU Secretary, Sally McManus, says the level of insecure work we have in Australia “is not normal”.

“It is far worse than most OECD countries and it has got much worse over just one generation. It runs through everything. When you are not secure in your job, you have less rights, greater stress. It affects your everyday life and that of your family. This has to change,” she says.