Guest Editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue on FIFO Work

Abstract

This special edition of the Australian Bulletin of Labour is concerned with the recent and much-hyped phenomenon of Fly-In Fly-Out (FIFO) workers. We stress that our focus is on FIFO, not on the related question of work and employment in the resources sector, or on the broader impact of the resources sector on the regions and communities where it is located. There have been recent special editions of other journals on these matters: one assessing the impact of the Australian resources sector on rural societies (Rural Society 22, 2 2013) and another examining the dynamics and pattern of development in the Pilbara (Australian Geographer 44, 3 2013), as well as an inquiry—reported in 2013—undertaken by the Australian House of Representatives Standing Committee on Regional Australia (FHRE 2013).