The COVID-19 pandemic has created economic crises and considerable loss of employment throughout the world. In the Australian context, social distancing restrictions and business closures contributed to a dramatic increase in unemployment, with 780,000 people losing work within weeks of the first COVID-19 outbreaks. Job losses were concentrated in casualised industries such as retail, recreation, arts and culture, hospitality, and accommodation. We examine policy discourses framing independent work, entrepreneurial workers and flexible work relations as essential for ‘economic recovery’, where this means business flexibility, productivity and future economic prosperity. We draw on these framings to show how the equation of flexible work relations and productivity underpins the Australian Government’s response to unemployment caused by the pandemic, as reflected in policy announcements and proposed changes to industrial relations law. In these proposals, constructions of ‘job creation’ and ‘economic recovery’ rationalise industrial relations changes that further empower business, through conflating public and business interest. At the same time, ensuing labour market deregulation and the changing profile of business renders the very idea of ‘jobs’ tendentious.

JEL Codes: J08, J28, J31, J38

COVID-19大流行在全球范围内造成了经济危机和大量的就业机会流失。在澳大利亚，社会疏远限制和企业倒闭导致失业人数急剧增加，在第一次COVID-19暴发后的数周内，有780,000人失业。失业人数主要集中在休闲行业，例如零售，娱乐，艺术和文化，酒店和住宿。我们研究了将独立工作，企业家和灵活的工作关系作为框架的政策论述，这对于“经济复苏”至关重要，这意味着业务的灵活性，生产力和未来的经济繁荣。我们利用这些框架来说明灵活的工作关系和生产率等式如何支撑澳大利亚政府对由大流行引起的失业的应对，如政策公告和对劳资关系法的拟议修改所反映。在这些建议中，“创造就业机会”和“经济复苏”的构想使劳资关系的变化合理化，从而通过合并公共利益和商业利益进一步增强了企业的能力。同时，随之而来的对劳动力市场的放松管制和不断变化的业务状况使“工作”趋向于趋于合理。

JEL代码： J08，J28，J31，J38