tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/employment-services-56000/articlesemployment services – The Conversation2023-11-30T01:28:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2188072023-11-30T01:28:14Z2023-11-30T01:28:14ZParliamentary report slams mutual obligation, calling for total overhaul of employment services<p>A parliamentary inquiry has delivered a scathing indictment of Australia’s employment services, finding it does not serve the interests of job seekers or employers and urging the privatised system be partially wound back.</p>
<p>A rigid approach to mutual obligation is killing unemployed people’s motivation, employers are flooded with inappropriate applications, and people are not adequately assessed upfront, the inquiry has found. </p>
<p>“We have an inefficient, outsourced, fragmented social security compliance management system that sometimes gets someone a job against all odds,” the committee chair, Victorian Labor MP Julian Hill, writes in his foreword to the report into Workforce Australia Employment Services. </p>
<p>The inquiry, done by a House of Representatives committee, finds the system can’t be fixed by “tweaks”. </p>
<p>It recommends a comprehensive rebuilding of the system with a much stronger role for government, including the establishment of a new entity within the public service to drive the system and be a “hybrid provider”. </p>
<p>Employment services were privatised 25 years ago and form the federal government’s biggest single procurement outside defence.</p>
<p>The inquiry found jobseekers are subject to “excessive – often very punitive – compliance and enforcement arrangements, which have little or no positive impact on their capacity for social and economic participation”.</p>
<p>The present approach “is tying the system up in red-tape and pointlessly harming productivity in providers, driving large and small businesses away from the system, and actually making many people less employable.” </p>
<p>The inquiry urges a more tailored approach. </p>
<p>This would include counselling clients several times before moving to compliance, an adjusted sanctions regime, and having “human decisions-makers” deal with key compliance functions, removing “Robo-Cancel” automation in suspending and cancelling payments. </p>
<p>The report, titled Rebuilding Employment Services, says stakeholders painted a picture of a scheme based on fear, excessive competition and compliance. </p>
<p>Participants fear doing something wrong and losing income. Providers fear the department giving them a black mark and losing their contracts. Excessive competition is to the detriment of employers and vulnerable job seekers. </p>
<p>The report says the public service, sitting on top of the system, “is detached and seemingly disinterested in or unaware of what actually happens at the frontline or in brokering place-based solutions, sharing best practice or encouraging innovation”. </p>
<p>Instead, it is focused on procurement, contract management and key performance indicators. </p>
<p>The employment services system is underpinned by two “flawed theories”.</p>
<p>“The first is that unemployment is an individual failing […] and that clients will make efforts to secure employment if only they are beaten hard enough. </p>
<p>"The second is that choice and competition in human services will inevitably result in better services and improved employment outcomes, especially for vulnerable and long-term unemployed people,” the report says. </p>
<p>“The system is also driven by the pernicious myth of the ‘dole bluder’, reflected in a patently ridiculous level of compliance and reporting activities.</p>
<p>"Employers have made it clear that the system adds little value to their business, and that it repeatedly tries to force unsuitable jobseekers into vacancies without providing adequate incentives or support.”</p>
<p>The report says “a hunger games-style contracting model and regulatory culture drives very high turnover in providers during contracting and licensing rounds”. This leads to disruption and devastates trust. In the last round, some 22% of regions saw all providers removed. </p>
<p>The inquiry urges government be an “active steward” proving enabling services as well as some direct service delivery in “thin markets” and to rebuild capability. </p>
<p>“Consistent with the world’s best employment systems and other human services (think TAFE, education, health or aged care) a public sector core to the employment services system must be rebuilt,” Hill writes in his foreword. </p>
<p>“Australia must change our culture and mindset from the current paradigm where politicians obsessively contract employment services out and deny responsibility, to a system where service partners are contracted to work with government and employers in local communities.” </p>
<p>The new entity proposed, Employment Services Australia, would be within the department of employment and workplace relations. It would be a large “digital-hybrid provider for jobseekers”. </p>
<p>It would establish regional hubs, where possible co-located with existing services, which would undertake jobseeker assessment and referrals to services, as well as engaging with industry and employers. </p>
<p>The inquiry’s blueprint for reform recommends dialling back excessive competition in local areas, focusing on more employer engagement, and considering integrating digital employment marketplaces, such as SEEK, LinkedIn and competitors into the system.</p>
<p>The committee’s 75 recommendations include the government creating a permanent administrative traineeship position for disadvantaged jobseekers in the electorate office of each MP. This is to lead by example and expose all parliamentarians to the lived experiences of disadvantaged people. Each placement would last between nine and 18 months. </p>
<p>The report says Australia spends materially less than the OECD average on employment services overall. Taking out administrative costs and the like, Australia spends slightly more than the OECD average on case management, job placements and benefit administration. But it invests significantly less in direct job creation, start up initiatives and training.</p>
<p>In a dissenting report, Liberal MP Aaron Violi criticised some of the central recommendations.</p>
<p>“The Coalition has concerns about some of the key recommendations […] that evidently seek to water down mutual obligation requirements, pass on key employment service functions from the private to the public sector, which end up increasing the size of the bureaucracy, inflating the cost to the taxpayer and simply risk
creating more red tape.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218807/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government has released a review of the employment services system. The scathing indictment has found the current system doesn’t serve the interests of jobseekers or employers.Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of CanberraLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1696092021-10-24T19:00:53Z2021-10-24T19:00:53ZAustralia’s ‘underclass’ don’t like work? Our research shows vulnerable job seekers don’t get the help they need<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427700/original/file-20211021-19-fuzadi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4619%2C2807&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">James Ross/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Former NSW minister Pru Goward wrote a <a href="https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/don-t-underestimate-the-underclass-20211018-p5910c">column</a> in the Australian Financial Review last week about Australia’s “underclass,” who she says are lazy, dysfunctional and don’t like the “discipline” of work. </p>
<p>This was condemned by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/oct/20/pru-goward-afr-column-on-underclass-condemned-as-disturbing-and-abusive">anti-poverty advocates</a> as disturbing, but it was not terribly surprising. Australia has a <a href="https://theconversation.com/australia-has-been-stigmatising-unemployed-people-for-almost-100-years-covid-19-is-our-big-chance-to-change-this-143349">long history</a> of stigmatising those without work.</p>
<p>The idea that unemployed people are work-shy is also conveyed in one of Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/press-conference-australian-parliament-house-act-230221">catchphrases</a>: “the best form of welfare is a job”. But this is not always a straightforward proposition. </p>
<p>In our upcoming book, <a href="https://sydneyuniversitypress.com.au/collections/ro_forthcoming/products/174581">Buying and Selling the Poor</a>, we tell the story of the offices and frontline staff who work with the most vulnerable job seekers. </p>
<p>We wanted to find out why some employment agencies do better at helping very disadvantaged people find jobs, given that the welfare-to-work system has such a <a href="https://www.acoss.org.au/faces-of-unemployment-2020/">high failure rate</a> when it comes to the long-term unemployed.</p>
<h2>Welfare-to-work in Australia</h2>
<p>Australia has the world’s only fully privatised welfare-to-work system. It is a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jan/08/labor-says-jobactive-system-is-failing-job-seekers-and-businesses">multibillion dollar</a> industry, involving about 40 private agencies who help job seekers become “job ready” through training and face-to-face meetings with case managers.</p>
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<img alt="Job seekers line up outside a Cenrelink at the heigh for the COVID pandemic in March 2020" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427701/original/file-20211021-28-q6cmta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427701/original/file-20211021-28-q6cmta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427701/original/file-20211021-28-q6cmta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427701/original/file-20211021-28-q6cmta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=422&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427701/original/file-20211021-28-q6cmta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427701/original/file-20211021-28-q6cmta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427701/original/file-20211021-28-q6cmta.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=530&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">To receive unemployment payments, you must be also be looking for work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Peled/AAP</span></span>
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<p>The system has a reputation for being efficient – a 2019 <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/JobActive2018/Report/section?id=committees%2freportsen%2f024217%2f27064">parliamentary report</a> noted there had been more than one million job placements since mid-2015. Indeed, most of those on JobSeeker (unemployment) payments are only temporarily out of work due to factors like layoffs, economic downturns in their industry, or the nature of casual work. </p>
<p>But there are also hundreds of thousands of Australians for whom unemployment lasts years. These are people who may not have worked for a long time because of caring responsibilities, disability or illness. Others may have limited education or complex issues such as addiction or homelessness.</p>
<p>As the Reserve Bank <a href="https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2020/dec/long-term-unemployment-in-australia.html">reported</a> in December 2020, around one in every five unemployed people have been unemployed for more than a year. This is up from around one in every eight a decade ago.</p>
<h2>Our study</h2>
<p>Our research was based on four job services agencies that were “high performing” in terms of getting long-term unemployed people into work. This included one in suburban Melbourne, one in outer Melbourne, another in Melbourne’s inner-city and a fourth in regional NSW. </p>
<p>All <a href="https://arts.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2947379/from-entitlement-to-experiment-industry-report-2018.pdf">four offices</a> were among the top job services in Victoria and NSW based on the proportion of clients they had placing into jobs lasting 26 weeks or more in the year before our study (according to government data). </p>
<p>Over 18 months from late 2016 to early 2018, we sat in these offices, watching and documenting all interactions for days at a time. We interviewed agency staff and followed the fate of about 100 disadvantaged clients (namely, job seekers who had been assessed by Centrelink as being least “job ready” and so needing the most employment support). </p>
<h2>No single winning formula</h2>
<p>Our study showed there is no singular underlying formula to help the most disadvantaged job seekers. </p>
<p>Some offices displayed high levels of team work (with colleagues actively helping each other with clients), while others were more skilled at connecting with employers and took advantage of being close to centres of light industry and a good supply of suitable jobs. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/our-research-shows-more-australians-receive-unemployment-payments-than-you-think-151289">Our research shows more Australians receive unemployment payments than you think</a>
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<p>But, taken as a whole, the picture was one of relatively marginal returns. The difference between being an “average” and an “outstanding” provider of services to highly disadvantaged job seekers (based on government performance data) may be as low as placing <a href="https://arts.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/2947379/from-entitlement-to-experiment-industry-report-2018.pdf">one or two additional</a> people a into a job that they hold for 26 weeks. </p>
<p>This suggests the Australian system remains largely unable to reliably assist vulnerable job seekers. </p>
<h2>Problems right from the start</h2>
<p>When people first claim JobSeeker payments, Centrelink organises them into one of three service streams: A (most “job ready”), B or C (“hardest to help”). Stream C accounts for around 16% of job services’ caseload and <a href="https://www.dese.gov.au/new-employment-services-model/resources/next-generation-employment-services-discussion-paper">about 44%</a> of this group have been clients with employment services for more than five years. </p>
<p>This categorisation is important - it determines the level of support (such as funding for training) a job seeker is eligible for. Providers also earn more for helping clients into work if they are in Stream C.</p>
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<img alt="People lining up outside a Centrelink office." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427704/original/file-20211021-25-1dzdq8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427704/original/file-20211021-25-1dzdq8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427704/original/file-20211021-25-1dzdq8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427704/original/file-20211021-25-1dzdq8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427704/original/file-20211021-25-1dzdq8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427704/original/file-20211021-25-1dzdq8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427704/original/file-20211021-25-1dzdq8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Job services can easily get bogged down in paperwork.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stefan Postles/AAP</span></span>
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<p>Our work confirmed previous research, such as that of the <a href="https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/jobactive-report/6/">Refugee Council of Australia</a> – the tool used to classify job seekers is not an accurate measure of the real conditions for these clients. </p>
<p>This is because job seekers are often reluctant to disclose deeply personal issues such as domestic violence or criminal records to strangers at Centrelink. As a result, job services then invest considerable energy having job seekers reclassified, or “<a href="https://socialpolicyblog.com/2019/08/05/contracting-employment-services-by-results-performance-targets-differential-payments-and-category-games/">up-streamed</a>,” from an A to a B or C. </p>
<p>This involves sending clients back to Centrelink for reassessment, which can take months and months. So there is less time spent connecting with people’s needs and more time doing administration.</p>
<h2>Staff with few specialist skills</h2>
<p>We also encountered a system staffed by people with little specialist skills and job security. </p>
<p>When job services were privatised 30 years ago, many frontline staff came from a professional or social work background. Today, it is predominantly staffed by those without tertiary qualifications. Case workers are former hairdressers, bakers, flight attendants, hospitality workers and carpenters. Some have been long-term unemployed themselves. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/robodebt-was-a-fiasco-with-a-cost-we-have-yet-to-fully-appreciate-150169">Robodebt was a fiasco with a cost we have yet to fully appreciate</a>
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<p>Some of the staff specifically told us their job is not to help solve job seekers’ personal problems and crises (they are not “counsellors”). </p>
<p>The pay is low, the work can be stressful, with pressure to hit targets and little time to connect with people and the turnover is high. This inevitably means those who really need help are not necessarily receiving a specialist service. </p>
<h2>Some good news</h2>
<p>We also saw repeated examples of staff doing everything they could to make sure the system was not too brutal or indifferent to vulnerable people. </p>
<p>While the computer-driven system prompts staff to penalise (which may result in docked payments) jobs seekers for misdemeanours as small as arriving late to appointments, we saw staff exercising compassion and finding ways around this.</p>
<p>We saw staff who knew all the agencies’ clients by name and who worked as a team. If an employer had multiple vacancies, staff would place any and all “job-ready” job seekers into the position, regardless of who their official case manager was. </p>
<p>A human heart still beats within the system. </p>
<h2>More change coming</h2>
<p>From mid-next year, right as the labour market tries to recover from COVID-19, a radical change is coming. </p>
<p>Welfare-to-work will be done primarily online, with an app for case management. If this does not result in a job within 18 months, the job seeker – then classified as long-term unemployed – will likely be moved into a face-to-face system.</p>
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<img alt="A woman applies for jobs online" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427703/original/file-20211021-19-10p9dgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/427703/original/file-20211021-19-10p9dgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427703/original/file-20211021-19-10p9dgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427703/original/file-20211021-19-10p9dgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427703/original/file-20211021-19-10p9dgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427703/original/file-20211021-19-10p9dgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/427703/original/file-20211021-19-10p9dgz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Job services will become digitised from mid-2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
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<p>The government <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/job-seekers-to-be-switched-to-online-service-in-hidden-1-1-billion-budget-saving-20210514-p57s2y.html">says</a> more money will be invested into programs for young people and skills training. But welfare advocates warn the old problems of “too little help and too much policing” will just be replicated in the new system. Moreover, what this digitisation will mean for vulnerable job seekers (particularly those who don’t have good computer skills or up-to-date technology) is yet to play out. </p>
<p>Our study’s overall conclusion is the current system does not work for the most disadvantaged clients. The approach to helping people into work is transactional – even at the best of agencies. </p>
<p>Whether a job is indeed the best form of welfare <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/abs/common-mental-disorders-unemployment-and-psychosocial-job-quality-is-a-poor-job-better-than-no-job-at-all/E918200BB8584314B72A12E56153669A">or not</a>, this is far from easy to achieve for some Australians, even with the “assistance” of face-to-face employment services.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/169609/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Siobhan O'Sullivan receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) under their Linkage scheme. The industry partners for this project were the National Employment Services Australia (NESA), Westgate Community Initiatives (WCIG) and Jobs Australia (JA). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Considine receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) under their Linkage scheme. The industry partners for this project were the National Employment Services Australia (NESA), Westgate Community Initiatives (WCIG) and Jobs Australia (JA).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael McGann receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC), the European Commission, and WCIG. </span></em></p>A new book tells the story of the offices and frontline staff who work with Australia’s most disadvantaged job seekers.Siobhan O'Sullivan, Associate professor, UNSW SydneyMark Considine, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor of Political Science, The University of MelbourneMichael McGann, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow, Maynooth University Social Sciences InstituteLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1624212021-07-20T06:36:09Z2021-07-20T06:36:09ZThe problem with employment services: providers profit more than job seekers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/406364/original/file-20210615-21-1c3v5cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C544%2C3059%2C1483&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">OlegDoroshin/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The federal government has declared its “independent assessments” plan for the National Disability Insurance Scheme “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-09/ndis-disability-independent-assessments-model-dead-after-meeting/100277324">dead</a>”. But it has another plan to save money: get people with disabilities off welfare and into jobs. </p>
<p>It is <a href="https://ministers.dss.gov.au/media-releases/7321">committing A$3.5 million</a> to building a “dedicated job platform connecting people with disability with employers”. It hopes 100,000 job seekers and 45,000 businesses will be on it within 18 months. </p>
<p>There are similar technological fixes in the pipe for the broader <a href="https://www.dese.gov.au/jobactive">Jobactive</a> employment services program. A new “digital services” model for job seekers is due to be rolled out <a href="https://www.dese.gov.au/new-employment-services-model">from July 2022</a>. </p>
<p>But technology is unlikely to achieve much without addressing the fundamental flaw in the government’s approach to helping those with disabilities or other disadvantages find jobs. </p>
<p>The problem with the system is that it premised on competition, not collaboration.
This model of employment services, delivered by outsourced providers, seems to have mostly benefited the providers. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ndis-independent-assessments-are-off-the-table-for-now-thats-a-good-thing-the-evidence-wasnt-there-164163">NDIS independent assessments are off the table for now. That's a good thing — the evidence wasn't there</a>
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<h2>How the system works</h2>
<p>The Jobactive and Disability Employment Services (DES) programs work roughly the same way. To receive income support payments, job seekers must sign up with an employment services provider. </p>
<p>DES providers are paid regular service fees and outcome fees when a client has a job for four, 13, 26 and 52 weeks. Ongoing support fees are paid for clients who need further assistance maintaining their employment.</p>
<p>Jobactive providers are paid when clients have been in a job for four, 13 and 26 weeks, at three different rates according to a client’s “job readiness”. </p>
<p>Those most ready (stream A) are meant to get some assistance such as putting together a resume. The least ready (stream C) are meant to get help with the issues preventing them gaining or keeping a job.</p>
<p>This system was introduced in the late 1990s by the Howard government, which shut down the old Commonwealth Employment Service. Competition was meant to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of employment services. Since then, however, the evidence it has largely failed has accumulated. </p>
<p>In 2019 <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/JobActive2018/Report">a Senate inquiry</a> reported widespread perceptions the main outcomes were “generating income and employment within service providers”.</p>
<p>Job seekers have described their experience of service providers “going through the motions”. Those who have worked for providers have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/oct/24/jobactive-workers-speak-out-how-the-hell-did-i-end-up-doing-this-to-these-people">described a system</a> that has turned unemployment into a profitable business. </p>
<p>Gaming the system seems to be all too common, with the most disadvantaged (stream C job seekers) being “parked” while service providers focus on the “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-28/coronavirus-jobseeker-system-relies-on-there-being-jobs-to-get/12601294">cream</a>” from stream A and B seekers, which pay less but are much easier to place. </p>
<h2>Providers making more</h2>
<p>In 2020 Boston Consulting Group came to similar conclusions after reviewing the Disability Employment Services program. <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/05_2021/des-mid-term-review-august-2020-v2.pdf">Its report</a> was made public in May due to a Freedom of Information application by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/30/we-are-just-money-to-them-why-australias-broken-privatised-job-search-system-needs-to-be-fixed">The Guardian</a>.</p>
<p>Despite “reforms” in 2018 to make the system even more competitive, the review says, “significant concerns remain regarding the program’s efficacy and efficiency”. </p>
<p>The review canvasses problems including mixed service quality, inflexibility, low innovation, excessive complexity and ineffective market mechanisms. “Market competition has increased, yet market mechanisms have not driven observable improvements in outcomes for participants,” it states. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/big-bucks-up-for-grabs-when-governments-outsource-unemployment-37903">Big bucks up for grabs when governments outsource unemployment</a>
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<p>What had improved were payments to providers — by an average of 38% for each 26-week employment outcome (from $27,800 to $38,400). </p>
<p>Close to a third (28%) of the providers had more than doubled their revenue. The number of job seekers being employed for 26 weeks, however, increased less than 8% (from about 7,595 a quarter to 8,171).</p>
<p>According to data published this month by <a href="https://www.michaelwest.com.au/jobactive-investigation-pandemic-boom-for-privatised-job-agencies-not-great-for-job-seekers/">Michael West Media</a>, since 2015 the federal government has paid the following to the five biggest DES and Jobactive employment service providers: $1.21 billion to Max Solutions; $667 million to APM/Serendipity; $606 million to Sarina Russo Job Access; $257 million to Neato Employment Services; and $221 million to Sureway Employment and Training.</p>
<h2>Building a better system</h2>
<p>I have seen through my own professional and academic practice — as a professor of construction management — how dysfunctional, fragmented and damaging this system is. I have also seen how some in the construction industry have stepped up to fill gaps in a system which fails them as much as the disadvantaged job seekers it is meant to help. </p>
<p>Construction is Australia’s fourth-biggest employer. About <a href="https://lmip.gov.au/default.aspx?LMIP/GainInsights/IndustryInformation/Construction">1.15 million people</a>, 9% of the total workforce, work in the sector. It is the largest employer of <a href="https://cica.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2015-Construction-Industry-Outlook.pdf">young people</a>, the largest provider of <a href="https://www.aapathways.com.au/insiders-advisers/news/australian-apprentice-and-trainee-statistics-summary-document">apprenticeships</a>.</p>
<p>With the federal government having committed A$225 billion <a href="https://infrastructure.org.au/budget-monitor-2020-21/">to infrastructure projects</a> over the next four years, it is <a href="https://www.business.nsw.gov.au/support-for-business/assistance-and-support/smart-skilled-and-hired/infrastructure-skills-legacy-program">estimated</a> the sector will employ an extra 300,000 workers nationally by 2024.</p>
<p>So there are huge opportunities for industry to provide more jobs for those with disabilities and other disadvantages.</p>
<h2>Investing in collaboration</h2>
<p>But this requires more than employment service providers just “going through the motions”. It needs a system of real engagement. </p>
<p>Most employers in the industry are small to medium-sized businesses. They worry about their margins and are averse to employing anyone they perceive as being a safety risk or less productive. Few have the knowledge and inclination to take risks on disadvantaged job seekers through the DES and Jobactive programs. </p>
<p>This is true generally. Just 4% of employers use the system to fill vacancies, according to <a href="https://apo.org.au/sites/default/files/resource-files/2018-12/apo-nid210776.pdf">federal government data</a>. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/this-laundry-is-changing-the-vicious-cycle-of-unemployment-and-mental-illness-117965">This laundry is changing the vicious cycle of unemployment and mental illness</a>
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<p>How to overcome this? </p>
<p>One approach is to emulate an initiative by construction company Multiplex, which since 2010 has been developing “<a href="https://www.theconnectivitycentre.com.au/">connectivity centres</a>” to increase employment opportunities for those from disadvantaged backgrounds. </p>
<p>The aim of this initiative is to support both job seekers and employers by reconnecting employment service providers and support services (such as in mental health, domestic violence and housing) forced apart by the current system. </p>
<p>As a result job seekers get more customised, targeted and relevant training that actually matches what employers want. </p>
<p>The key point is that collaboration is more effective than competition. </p>
<p>The current system does not provide the support both job seekers and employers need. Technology will not fix its flaws. Indeed, it may further depersonalise a system which already too often treats people like commodities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/162421/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Loosemore receives funding from The Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>To get more people with disabilities and other disadvantages into jobs, we need a system built on collaboration, not competition.Martin Loosemore, Professor of Construction Management, University of Technology SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1179652019-11-07T01:21:54Z2019-11-07T01:21:54ZThis laundry is changing the vicious cycle of unemployment and mental illness<p>Margaret was depressed, jobless, broke and behind on her rent when the single mother of two heard about Vanguard Laundry Services, in Toowoomba, Queensland.</p>
<p>“I was desperate for work, any work,” she recalls. She started working at the laundry the day before she was due to be evicted.</p>
<p>Given her situation, Margaret was lucky to hear about Vanguard. The laundry is a social enterprise established specifically to provide jobs to people with mental illness. The factors Margaret felt had been barriers to jobs at other businesses – such as her age, gender and health – were no impediment to her employment.</p>
<p>Employers generally tend to be far less accepting and understanding. According to <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4326.0Main+Features32007?OpenDocument">Australian Bureau of Statistics</a> data, 34% of unemployed women and 26% of unemployed men are dealing with mental illness. It makes it harder for them get and hold down a job. Being unemployed also tends to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0001879109000037">harm mental health</a>, so it’s a Catch-22. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/people-with-a-mental-illness-discriminated-against-when-looking-for-work-and-when-employed-52864">People with a mental illness discriminated against when looking for work and when employed</a>
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<p>The Productivity Commission’s <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/mental-health/draft">draft report into mental health</a> – which puts the economic cost of mental illness at A$180 billion a year – notes “particularly strong links between employment and mental health” and the importance of increasing job opportunities.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299808/original/file-20191101-102216-de61u2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299808/original/file-20191101-102216-de61u2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299808/original/file-20191101-102216-de61u2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299808/original/file-20191101-102216-de61u2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299808/original/file-20191101-102216-de61u2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=558&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299808/original/file-20191101-102216-de61u2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=701&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299808/original/file-20191101-102216-de61u2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=701&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/299808/original/file-20191101-102216-de61u2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=701&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries/current/mental-health/draft/mental-health-draft-overview.pdf">Productivity Commission</a></span>
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<p>My research with <a href="http://www.vanguardlaundryservices.com.au">Vanguard Laundry Services</a> and the people who work there shows just how transformative a job opportunity can be. </p>
<p>Since it launched in December 2016, the business has provided jobs to about 78 people with histories of mental illness and long-term unemployment. My research has followed 48 of them. Most report significantly improved mental and physical health since starting work there. There have been concrete social benefits in terms of reduced reliance on public welfare and health services. </p>
<h2>Flaws in the system</h2>
<p>Under the existing federal Disability Employment Services (DES) system, which pays job service providers to assist people with disabilities, <a href="https://docs.jobs.gov.au/documents/employment-services-outcomes-report-july-2017-june-2018-disability-employment-services">less than a third</a> of those with mental-health-related disability actually obtain a job. </p>
<p>According <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/JobActive2018">to a Senate Committee inquiry</a>, the employment service system creates “<a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/JobActive2018/Report/section?id=committees%2Freportsen%2F024217%2F26936">perverse financial incentives</a> to churn unemployed workers into easier and more reliable income-producing outcomes, such as employability training, Work for the Dole, and job search programs”.</p>
<p>Financial incentives for employers are hardly better. The government will pay a wage subsidy up to <a href="https://jobsearch.gov.au/employer-info/wage-subsidies">$6,500 over six months</a> for hiring someone registered with a job service provider for more than 12 months. These subsidies are open to any employer – including social enterprises like Vanguard Laundry – but this system can also be abused by profit-driven employers to offer only short-term jobs.</p>
<p>The Productivity Commission’s draft report makes several recommendations to improve employment outcomes. One is to put more resources into Individual Placement and Support (IPS) services, which include job coaching, assistance dealing with government services, education and on-the-job support.</p>
<p>There is evidence IPS is more successful <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD011867.pub2">than other employment interventions</a> but, like other intermediary employment service approaches, there’s still the challenge of finding employers who are both willing to give someone a go and have a supportive work culture. </p>
<p>Many participants in my research spoke about past employment experiences that included unrealistically high workloads, verbally abusive supervisors and discrimination. Though employment is generally beneficial for mental health, a job with bad working conditions <a href="https://oem.bmj.com/content/68/11/806.abstract">can be worse than unemployment</a>. </p>
<h2>Creating inclusive employment</h2>
<p>This is where social enterprises like Vanguard Laundry Services have a role to play.</p>
<p>A social enterprise is a business whose core aim is to <a href="https://mapforimpact.com.au/about/what-is-a-social-enterprise/">create public or community benefit</a>. Like many of the 20,000 social enterprises in Australia, Vanguard’s core social purpose is to create <a href="https://www.csi.edu.au/media/uploads/FASES_2016_full_report_final.pdf">meaningful employment opportunities</a> for people experiencing disadvantage. </p>
<p>When creating employment is the reason an enterprise exists, working conditions can be more focused on the needs of workers. My research found staff appreciated having flexibility over their hours and tasks, having understanding and supportive supervisors, and being able be open about their mental health issues yet still be accepted.</p>
<p>From its launch to the end of June 2018, <a href="https://www.amp.com.au/content/dam/corporate/newsroom/files/Vanguard%20Impact%20Report%202018.pdf">Vanguard’s social impacts</a> have included:</p>
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<li>saving A$153,451 in welfare payments by raising the median income of target staff by $152 a week and reducing average Centrelink payments by A$102.25 a week</li>
<li>saving A$231,767 in health costs, through employees spending a total of 138 fewer days in hospital.</li>
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<p>These results highlight the potential benefits for society that the right mix of government policies can offer through supporting social enterprises.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-social-enterprises-are-building-a-more-inclusive-australian-economy-88472">How social enterprises are building a more inclusive Australian economy</a>
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<p>By responding to some of the challenges within the existing employment system, social enterprises like Vanguard Laundry have the potential to both increase access to work for people with mental illness, and ensure the workplaces people move into are conducive to good mental health.</p>
<p>As Margaret’s story illustrates, access to decent work can make a drastic difference to a person experiencing mental illness and struggling to get by. “It’s just totally changed my life,” she says. “To be quite honest, it saved my life.” </p>
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<p><em>Margaret’s name and some details have been changed to protect her privacy.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117965/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aurora Elmes receives a PhD Scholarship from Vanguard Laundry Services, and funded by the AMP Foundation. </span></em></p>Mental illness makes it harder to get and to keep a job. We need more employers prepared to give people with mental health challenges a go.Aurora Elmes, PhD Candidate, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/988522018-07-02T03:33:28Z2018-07-02T03:33:28ZEmployment services aren’t working for older jobseekers, jobactive staff or employers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/225274/original/file-20180628-112601-7e834f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">While the federal government promotes the employment of older people through the jobactive network, in practice it's not working well for them.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blog.jobactive.gov.au/why-recruiting-mature-age-workers-makes-good-business-sense">Australian Government/jobactive</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While the <a href="https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/connecting-people-with-jobs-key-issues-for-raising-labour-market-participation-in-australia_9789264269637-en#page31%5D">mature-age unemployment rate is low</a> compared to youth unemployment, <a href="http://library.bsl.org.au/jspui/bitstream/1/7905/4/Workforce_vulnerabilities_in_midlife_and_beyond_research_summary_2015.pdf">older people are more likely to remain unemployed</a>. The <a href="https://www.sharethepie.com.au/">low rate of Newstart Allowance</a> means they are doing it tough. Our two-year study, <a href="https://www.bsl.org.au/research/projects/enhancing-employment-services-for-mature-age-jobseekers/">Enhancing employment services for mature-age jobseekers</a>, suggests government-funded employment services are not working well for these older jobseekers, the services’ staff or employers. </p>
<p>We also identify steps that need to be taken to ensure that future contracts for employment service provider contracts do find work for these jobseekers.</p>
<p>With the pension age rising to 67 by July 2023, people are being encouraged to keep working for longer. But they must also contend with the changes wrought by a <a href="https://www.workingforeveryone.com.au/world-of-work-has-changed/">40-year shift</a> towards fewer low-skilled manual jobs, increased requirements for post-compulsory educational qualifications, and more casual, contract, labour-hire and part-time jobs. Technological change, with automation of routine jobs, increased global market competition and the offshoring of jobs, and social change, with more women in the labour force, have combined to dramatically reshape the labour market.</p>
<h2>What’s wrong with employment services?</h2>
<p>For-profit and not-for-profit providers deliver the current iteration of government-funded employment services, <a href="https://www.jobs.gov.au/jobactive">jobactive</a>, under contract to the federal Department of Employment. The contract ends in 2020.</p>
<p>Our research into how older jobseekers are faring with jobactive providers focused on four regions with high rates of mature-age unemployment: western Melbourne, north-eastern Melbourne, south-eastern Melbourne and the inner city. We interviewed 30 mature-age jobseekers (<a href="http://library.bsl.org.au/showitem.php?handle=1/10835">defined as 45 or older</a>), 32 jobactive staff and 21 employers and key stakeholders.</p>
<p>Older jobseekers need help from jobactive providers to identify transferable skills. They also need training linked to job opportunities. As Daisy, in her later 50s, explained: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We want to stay off unemployment and we want to feel like a human being, a contributing human being.</p>
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<p>And that means “helping us find jobs that fit our skills and our strengths”.</p>
<p>Instead, jobseekers’ appointments are dominated by paperwork. </p>
<p>Jobactive <a href="http://library.bsl.org.au/showitem.php?handle=1/10836">employment services staff</a> want to help older jobseekers. But they told us they do not have enough time or resources to do this because of the burdens of contractual compliance and high caseloads. An employment consultant explained the pressures:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We’re meant to make sure their job plan’s suitable, we’re meant to refer them to positions … We’ve got on the database, we’re meant to scan their job search, calculate their job search for Centrelink — there’s a lot you’ve got to do in 30 minutes. </p>
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<p>Compliance with the contract and enforcing Centrelink’s <a href="https://www.humanservices.gov.au/individuals/enablers/mutual-obligation-requirements/29751">“mutual obligation” requirements</a> sometimes get in the way of better supporting jobseekers. </p>
<p>The employers we interviewed had little awareness or understanding of jobactive as a public employment service. This limited awareness is reflected in the <a href="https://docs.jobs.gov.au/system/files/doc/other/the_australian_recruitment_industry_accessible_version_august_2016_final.pdf">low use of employment services by employers</a>.</p>
<p>Few of the <a href="http://library.bsl.org.au/showitem.php?handle=1/10837">employers we interviewed</a> use jobactive. Some said they were reluctant to use jobactive (if they knew about it at all).</p>
<p>This was because of concern “about the type of candidate they’re going to get”. Employers were cautious about recruiting any age group through publicly funded employment services, because they were peppered with unsuitable job applicants. One employer said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Don’t give me 12 people that actually don’t want to work. KPIs in that area don’t work for employers. If they’re not right, they’re not right, so don’t waste your time … We stopped working with a provider because they were doing … the KPI, tick-a-box thing.</p>
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<p>As another employer who used jobactive told his employment service provider: “Don’t give me a lemon when I’m after apples.”</p>
<h2>How can these services be improved?</h2>
<p>Employment services face many challenges in promoting older jobseekers to employers who may be reluctant to take on staff they perceive as <a href="https://mspgh.unimelb.edu.au/ageing-industry-network/newsletter-issue-7-june-2017/ageism-isnt-as-simple-as-it-seems">“rusty” or “threatening”</a>. Programs such as the now-defunct <a href="https://olderworkers.com.au/news/corporate-champions/">Corporate Champions</a> can help to promote the benefits of age-diverse workforces among employers. However, these run the risk of <a href="https://percapita.org.au/our_work/whats-age-got-to-do-with-it/">reinforcing age stereotypes</a>. </p>
<p><a href="http://library.bsl.org.au/showitem.php?handle=1/10838">Our research</a> finds that flexible, tailored support is required to help older jobseekers into sustainable employment. This need not involve special programs. Instead, it will be important to build on the insights from the <a href="https://www.jobs.gov.au/career-transition-assistance">Career Transition Assistance Program</a>, the expansion of the <a href="https://www.jobs.gov.au/national-work-experience-programme">National Work Experience Program</a> and the establishment of <a href="https://www.jobs.gov.au/pathway-work-pilots">Pathway to Work Pilots</a>. </p>
<p>These features should be integrated into the <a href="https://www.jobs.gov.au/future-employment-services">next employment services contract</a>. The next contract should allow more flexible and tailored responses to cohorts such as mature-age jobseekers. This can be achieved through smaller caseloads, more time to work with jobseekers and less time on compliance. </p>
<p>Tackling the challenges of mature-age unemployment requires better matching of candidates with vacancies. A skills assessment should be undertaken with all older jobseekers. This will identify transferable skills and enable better matching with vacancies and with training. </p>
<p>Staff also need training, especially in identification of transferable skills and career guidance. </p>
<p>Small changes can have big impacts. For example, jobseekers should be able to fulfil their mutual obligation requirements through volunteering that is relevant to their experience. </p>
<p>But broader policy change is needed too. In particular, we need a focus on fostering local economic development that creates jobs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98852/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dina Bowman is a Principal Research Fellow in the Research and Policy Centre at the Brotherhood of St Laurence. In that capacity she receives funding from Financial Literacy Australia, ANZ and the Brotherhood of St Laurence, This study was funded by the Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation—Eldon & Anne Foote Trust (Innovation Grant 2015). She is a member of Per Capita's research advisory group.</span></em></p>A two-year study finds dissatisfaction with current arrangements, but also identifies small changes that can make a big difference in helping to find suitable jobs for older workers.Dina Bowman, Principal Research Fellow, Research & Policy Centre, Brotherhood of St Laurence, and Honorary Senior Fellow, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.