FED: fewer Working days lost to strikes falls

AAP General News (Australia)
08-19-1999
FED: fewer Working days lost to strikes falls

CANBERRA, Aug 19 AAP - The number of working days lost to industrial disputes plunged by 43
per cent in May, the third consecutive monthly fall, new figures show.

But the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) said the number of industrial disputes -
which include stopwork meetings, strikes or other work stoppages - rose from a revised 48 in
April to 65 in May.

The number of working days lost to disputes fell to 16,000 from 28,100 the previous month,
while the number of employees involved in industrial disputes fell by 40 per cent to 10,900 in
May.

The construction industry recorded the largest drop in working days lost compared with the
previous month.

Victoria accounted for 52 per cent of all working days lost, followed by Western Australia
with 18 per cent and New South Wales at 16 per cent.

In the ABS calculations, ten working days is equivalent to the amount of time worked by ten
people in one day, not including overtime.

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KEYWORD: DISPUTES

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