Symposium on Precarious Labour Geographies Led by Dr James, A/Prof Power and Prof Cheer

On 14th February, 2025, with funding support from the Geographical Society of New South Wales, Dr Donna James, Associate Professor Emma Power and Professor Joseph Cheer hosted the 'Precarious Labour Geographies Symposium'. The symposium, which was hosted at Western Sydney University's Parramatta City Campus brought together academics, industry, and other stakeholders who are working on topics related to precarious labour, unfortunately extremely common in the leisure industries.

Delegates travelled from all over Australia to participate and to hear from two excellent keynote speakers; Dr Kaya Barry (DECRA Fellow and Senior Lecturer at the Griffith Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Griffith University), and Associate Professor Shelagh Mooney (A global expert in gender and hospitality management and Associate Dean Research for the Faculty of Culture and Society, at Auckland University of Technology).

We also had compelling presentations from the New South Wales Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Dr James Cockayne, and Enrico Vera-Cruz, the Director of the Domestic Skills Branch at Jobs and Skills Australia. Dr Cockayne shared about the important work he has been undertaking to address modern day slavery in areas of regional NSW. Mr Vera-Cruz provided an overview of an Income Volatility Metric he has developed for Jobs and Skills Australia. The metric will support Jobs and Skills Australia to identify who among the Australian population experiences high income volatility, which can be a marker of precarious work. The event will form the basis for a Special Issue on Precarious Labour Geographies in Australian Geographer.