MORE than half of retail workers have experienced hostility and abuse from customers during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new report from the ANU and University of Sydney has found.

The report, which gathered results from an online survey of more than 1,100 retail, fast-food and distribution workers in September during the height of lockdowns, is one of the first studies to look at the impacts of the pandemic on essential workers thrown into the frontline with little preparation and a high risk of exposure to the virus

Lead author professor Ariadne Vromen, from the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, said 56 per cent of retail workers experienced a notable increase in customer abuse during the pandemic.

“The experiences and concerns of these workers have tended to be overlooked or underestimated by the media and governments, relative to other frontline workers,” she said.

“The way we as a community engage with frontline workers should always be courteous and respectful. At the same time there are now long-term policy challenges on how to ensure quality, secure and safe employment across the Australian workforce.

“The experiences and concerns of these workers have tended to be overlooked or underestimated by the media and governments, relative to other frontline workers”

Prof Vromen said the retail sector can learn some valuable lessons from the pandemic well beyond the battles in supermarket aisles for toilet paper and other essential items.

“Questions remain about why there has been continued job insecurity and unpredictable hours in such a significant sector, and why workers were not redeployed into new online sales and warehouse roles,” Prof Vromen said.

“Women, linguistically diverse people and young people working in retail were also much more likely to report increased customer abuse during the pandemic, while also being much more likely to say they felt stressed enforcing customer COVID-19 safety compliance.”

Prof Vromen also said the pandemic precipitated a rapid adoption of new, contactless technologies, which promise to reshape the retail sector.

“Despite initial job losses and reduced working hours in the sector, the pandemic has been highly lucrative for many areas in retail, with record sales in food, household and recreational goods, and a shift to online shopping,” she said.

Almost half (49 per cent) of retail workers felt their job security had decreased as a result of the pandemic.

Those who were likely to feel more insecure during the pandemic were:

• women (51 per cent)
• those under 30 (56 per cent)
• those from a non-English-speaking background (60 per cent)
• frontline (51 per cent) and casual workers (55 per cent)
• those working in a locked-down region (53 per cent).

Read the full report here.