Last month, the ABC reported “rental affordability has hit a new low in Australia”. Already, low-wage workers in major cities face the burden of commuting to jobs they can’t afford to live near.
A lovely relative on my partner’s side, who is in her 60s and has worked for many years in aged care, told me last Christmas that women are joining her low-wage workplace after leaving retail jobs, where they were frequently verbally abused by customers. Signs displayed at many Australian retailers suggest this has become a post-pandemic feature of these workplaces.
