Daily News

View All News

Australia – Employers to be offered cash to place jobseekers in short-term fixed contract roles

31 March 2015

Employment service providers will be offered cash incentives to place jobseekers in both short-term and long-term positions, under changes announced by Australia’s Federal Government, reports The Guardian.

The new “jobactive” system will offer service providers a payment for filling four week-long vacancies, as well vacancies lasting 12 or 26 weeks.

“In the past we have only paid on 12- and 26-week outcomes,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott explained. “We know there are a lot of short-term jobs available, particularly in regional Australia, there are jobs that are seasonal and these are often the start of someone’s renewed connection with the labour market. That is why an important innovation in this new jobactive system is the four-week outcome payment.”

Mr Abbott said short-term work was “the best possible stepping stone into secure long-term jobs… The best preparation for work is work”.

Dave Oliver, Secretary of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) said the policy would “encourage service providers to churn vulnerable jobseekers through multiple short term job contracts in order to claim multiple payments”.

“The ACTU has consistently advocated for the government to introduce a 52-week payment to incentivise service providers to place jobseekers into long-term work. This would be a much better alternative to a four-week payment.”

The initiative has been panned by opposition party Labour.

“The government’s return to the failed Job Network model, with a new name, will not help unemployed Australians into work,” Shadow Employment Minister Brendan O’Connor told Guardian Australia.

“We are not convinced the introduction of a new four-week payment will do anything to support jobseekers into decent work. Instead it will lead to increased jobseeker churn and job insecurity.”

Mr O’Connor said that the Coalition must not take resources away from jobs training: “Labour is deeply concerned that the new employment services model will in fact leave job seekers without the support they need.”

Employment Minister Eric Abetz said unemployed people who took on short-term contracts or undertook work for dole programs were healthier: “All the data tells us that if you are gainfully employed, your mental, physical health, yourself esteem and social interaction are all enhanced and not only for you as an individual but everybody else in your household.”

“That is why, for the long term unemployed, to be engaged in work for the dole, for example, is not only an important mechanism to say thank you to your community, but it is also of untold social good to the individual,” he said.

A total of 66 job agencies have been offered contracts to deliver on the “jobactive” scheme, from the 184 that submitted tenders. Their contracts will last for five years, rather than three, a move the government said will provide greater certainty for service providers.