It turns out that the policies for under 30s in the federal budget in May were a precursor to a much wider set of changes affecting unemployed people across the board. These are just now coming to light. While people aged 30 and over won’t have to face a potential six-month wait to receive payments, nevertheless the Newstart unemployment payment is to become a much more conditional payment, with a considerably tougher set of eligibility requirements.
As a reminder, the full payment for a single person for Newstart Allowance is $255.25 a week. The rate of payment has been widely criticised as inadequate by many groups including the OECD and the Business Council of Australia, which makes the point that its low level is actually a barrier to effective job searches and employment.
Nevertheless, the government is proposing to make sure recipients “earn” every cent of this payment through an expanded “work for the dole” program for recipients up to the age of 49. People aged 50-60 will be required to undertake an “approved activity” under “mutual obligation”. Another new obligation is that people receiving Newstart will have to apply for around 10 jobs a week or 40 a month, roughly double the current requirement.
In fairness, the government is also saying that it will improve the employment services system to help people in their work search endeavours. This has been a theme for as long as I can remember in government efforts to increase employment services outcomes since the mid-1980s. But, however “effective and efficient” the service provider can be made, receiving a Newstart Allowance will be a singularly tough gig for anyone unfortunate enough to lose a job, or to be looking for a job after finishing a stint in education and training.
Greater “work for the dole” and work search requirements also have far-reaching implications for employers and organisations who host “work for the dole” programs. More applications does not make more jobs
The overall unemployment rate is now 6%, and 13.5% for 15-24 year olds. In May there were 146,000 job vacancies with 720,000 people unemployed. Another 920,000 were underemployed and wanting more hours of work. Underemployment is a very important labour market indicator as, under the terms of internationally agreed labour statistics collection, an individual is counted as employed if working one hour a week for pay or profit.
Altogether, these figures mean 1.64 million people who have no work or not enough work are potentially competing for available job vacancies.
While the labour force underutilisation rate of 13.5% suggests that there are around 10 potential job applicants for each vacancy, we need to consider that some sectors of employment will have very large pools of applicants. This applies especially to those jobs with broader skills requirements.
This is the core reality of the Australian job market. The intensification of job search requirements means people receiving Newstart will be coerced into applying for many jobs that they have very little chance of obtaining.
No one suggests that they shouldn’t be doing what they can to find a job, but futile applications for jobs serve no purpose but to tick the boxes to receive a payment. It is an immense strain on the unemployed person – as if being unemployed and living on Newstart isn’t hard enough.
Employers can expect to sort through hundreds of applications completed by job seekers having to submit 40 a month. Flazingo.com/Flickr, CC BY-SA
The government might also consider the burden it imposes on employers and employment service providers. Many employers will be inundated with unsuitable applicants. We might speculate that they will be less inclined to advertise positions attracting hundreds of applicants, perhaps opting for more informal means of recruitment.
At the same time, employment service providers will be tasked with pushing unemployed people into inappropriate job search efforts.
A further consideration is how “work for the dole” is to be expanded. Having worked in a number of NGOs, I am well aware that it is no simple task to take on a “volunteer” in terms of supervision and support; even more so someone who is mandated to do unpaid work so that they have some income to live on. It is an invidious and very unpleasant scenario for the type of organisations that the government wishes to impose on for “work for the dole” places.
And as economist Jeff Borland has pointed out in The Conversation, the outcomes of “work for the dole” program are very weak and largely a waste of time.
The question then must be asked: what is the government trying to achieve? Certainly, the outcome of its new policies for under 30s and the imminent policies for anyone on Newstart will be more stigmatisation for being unemployed, and more deterrence to making claims for payments.
Perhaps, there are some other motives related to long-term reduction in minimum wages, with more people prepared to work under the counter just to survive, as suggested in a thoughtful article by Fiona Scott-Norman in The Big Issue (July 4-17).
The final word on being unemployed
It’s worth recalling that it is very hard now being unemployed and in receipt of Newstart. I will let a woman in her early 50s who I interviewed for my doctoral research have the final word:
On Newstart there is constant pressure. Most of my time [is] taken up with job searching. In this time (three years) I have applied for over 600 jobs with a rate of one interview for every ten jobs I applied for. And out of these, resulted in two jobs … but only lasted the extent of probation. I found myself underperforming due to depression and lack of confidence.
By the way, she had a university degree and had worked many years in the public sector.
There are some people who seem angry and continuously look for conflict. Walk away, the battle they are fighting isn't with you, it's with themselves.
The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is not enough of anything to satisfy all who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics. ~ Thomas Sowell.
Who was the fool, who the wise man, who the beggar or the Emperor? Whether rich or poor, all are equal in death.
Poontang, there's nothing for the experienced either, let alone for graduates.
Just a quick reality check on seek..........fuckin hell is like a slap in the face man.......
P.S. Like Alex posted up above on the graduates turning to crime or to sex work hell I suggested this to timmy many times to start using that ass of his, and put it to work, earnin dollars! .........I won't be surprised if that boy actually took that advice, that gaad damn shyster. Som bitch is missin in action for a long muffikin time bro.........
Reality check folks, nothing like a good ol WSW smack down:
Unemployed Australians to be forced to apply for 40 jobs a month By Mike Head 30 July 2014
The Australian government this week unveiled punitive new requirements for the growing numbers of unemployed workers, designed to cut thousands off welfare benefits, coerce them into low-paid work and satisfy the mounting corporate demands for the government to deliver the austerity program it promised in its May budget.
Under the new rules, slated to commence next year, the unemployed will have to apply for at least 40 jobs a month, or be cut off benefits. In addition, they will have to undertake “work for the dole” for 15 to 25 hours a week, depending on their age, and relocate to other areas of the country to take a job.
Those aged under 30 will also be denied payments for six months of every year, despite being forced to “work for the dole” for 25 hours a week, and apply for 10 jobs a week. Those aged between 30 and 50 will have to do 15 hours of work for the dole every week. Even those aged 50 to 59 will have to perform “appropriate” activities—as yet undefined—for 15 hours a week.
This regime has nothing to do with finding decent work for the unemployed. Even according to the official statistics, there are now almost 730,000 jobless workers, with as many again “underemployed”—that is, looking for more hours of work. The jobless rate jumped from 5.8 to 6 percent last month. By another estimate, produced by the Roy Morgan polling company, the real figures are almost twice as high—2.51 million workers unemployed or underemployed.
Yet the latest survey of employers by the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed there were just 147,100 vacancies to be filled. That works out to about 10 unemployed or underemployed job seekers for each vacancy, even on the basis of the official figures.
This situation is the result of waves of job losses throughout basic industries, including steel, cars, airlines, postal and telecommunication services, retail, finance and mining, since the 2008 global financial crisis. Further mass layoffs are scheduled over the next two years, with the complete shutdown of the auto industry and 75,000 jobs expected to go because of the end of the mining investment boom.
Young job seekers have little prospect of obtaining secure full-time work, and the same goes for older retrenched workers. Recent figures show that more than 200,000 workers aged over 50 are now receiving unemployment benefits—a 45 percent increase in four years.
To require these workers, young and old, to submit 40 job applications a month, regardless of how pointless they are, is calculated only to harass, demoralise and humiliate them, and ultimately disqualify them from benefits altogether.
Cynical claims by the government’s employment ministers that the new rules would benefit the jobless by motivating and equipping them to get work were soon swept aside by Treasurer Joe Hockey.
Interviewed on Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio yesterday, Hockey declared: “[A]s a former employer myself, I know that sometimes the hungriest people looking for work—that is, hungry for work and hungry to work—are some of the best employees. And in that sense it’ll give business an opportunity.”
Hockey’s comments bluntly spell out the government’s central agenda: to force, and even starve, the jobless into accepting work on whatever terms and conditions that employers dictate.
Expanded “work for the dole” programs are to be rolled out across the country, compelling the jobless to perform unpaid work in a variety of previously paid occupations.
Employment Minister Eric Abetz, interviewed yesterday by rightwing radio host Alan Jones, declared: “Work for the Dole will be basically limited by the imagination of community organisations, local government, the not-for-profit sector. So we have opportunities in hospitality and food preparation, customer service, some landscaping, maintenance of vehicles.”
Australia will be divided into 51 employment regions. Each will have a “Work for the Dole Coordinator” to find such enterprises and supply them with workers via the government’s job service providers—businesses contracted to administer and enforce the new rules.
Jobless workers in regions of high unemployment—rates exceed 20 percent in some working class suburbs—will have to move home to accept work. “f there is a job opportunity that might be a couple of hours away … you are required to move to that job,” Abetz said.
There will be tougher rules to penalise those who fail to attend appointments with employment services, building on a draconian regime imposed by the previous Labor government after the 2010 election.
The new arrangements have been set out in tender documents for government contracts with employment service providers, to operate from next July. These tenders also specify that contractors will be paid on the basis of “performance, rather than for process” and “meeting the needs of employers” —that is, for pushing people into jobs, or off benefits, rather than for providing training.
The government may attempt to implement the changes without legislation. This would be a bid to avoid any measures being stalled in the Senate, as is currently the case with legislation to strip the under-30s jobless of benefits for six months each year.
Abetz made it clear that the changes are part of a wider agenda to dismantle welfare entitlements. “The Australian government is committed to helping more Australians move from welfare to work,” he said. Abetz said the new rules reinforced the doctrine of “mutual obligation,” which requires welfare recipients to fulfill “obligations” in return for their poverty-level payments.
The government is under intensifying pressure from the corporate and media elite to find ways to ram through its budget measures to slash welfare, health and education, or impose equivalent social spending cuts.
An editorial in yesterday’s Australian welcomed “the Abbott government’s radical extension of mutual obligation in job services” as a step in the right direction. Citing a call by mining magnate Gina Rinehart for lower labour costs, it backed a drive to push younger workers into becoming a mobile jobless army, to undermine wages and conditions throughout the working class.
“The work culture needs to change; young Australians must become more mobile, to fill the gaps employers have,” the editorial insisted. Murdoch’s newspaper reiterated its demand that politicians overcome the deep popular opposition to the budget’s austerity program. “[P]olitical leaders must not only pursue reform agendas, they need to find their voices again and show courage in outlining to the community why stasis is not an option,” it stated.
The only objection from Labor and the Greens, reflecting concerns expressed by big business, was that forcing people to apply for 40 jobs a month would impose a burden on employers. “Business does not need a deluge of applications just so a young jobseeker can say that he or she has fulfilled their obligations,” Labor’s employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor said, adding: “Of course we want to see a genuine search for work.”
Throughout its six years in office, the Labor government used the same language of “welfare to work” and “mutual obligation” to underscore its commitment to meeting the demands of the corporate elite.
Greens leader Christine Milne, whose party kept Labor in office until last year, echoed a call by the Business Council of Australia for the Newstart unemployment allowance, currently set at just $35 a day, to be increased by $50 a week—so the jobless have just enough money to look for work.
Employers may be the ones doing the extra work under the government's new 40-jobs-a-month unemployment rule
The Australian government’s new job seeking requirements would lead to employers being spammed on an unprecedented scale.
Jobseekers will be required to apply for at least 40 jobs a month under changes to employment services. Currently, most jobseekers are required to apply for at least 10 jobs a fortnight, though those in an area with low employment prospects only need to make six applications.
Business groups are concerned the change will have them inundated with poorly targeted applications. So far the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Business Council of Australia, and the Council of Small Business of Australia have all expressed concern about the new quota. Even the employment minister, Eric Abetz, has admitted there is a risk people will apply for jobs just to reach the target.
They’re probably right to worry. I’ve just tested how fast I could meet the 40 job application requirement and it only took me nine minutes, albeit with ready internet access.
Here’s how:
I created a profile on job search website seek.com.au. You can set up a profile with all your details, including your previous employment history and a resume. I created a fake profile (welcome to the workforce, Mr Fakey McName, former CEO of Awesome Corporation) and uploaded a dummy resume.
I helpfully put a line at the top of my resume to let people know that this was not a serious job application, and included a picture of a kitten in a hat to alleviate any feelings of ill will my fake application might create.
Once you’ve got your profile, you just need to do a search (I clicked on all “marketing” jobs) and shortlist a bunch of job ads. From your shortlist you can click through to apply for each job. Some job ads take you to their own website and application process – I skipped these, and instead only used job ads that made use of Seek’s built-in application system.
Seek allows you to then apply for the job with around two clicks. The details of the job application are sent to your email, which you then have on record in case you might need them for a job seeker diary (not that I’m advocating any rorting of the system, this is purely an academic exercise).
After the first couple of successfully sent applications, I repeated the process without sending so I could time the entire exercise but spare the poor people tasked with reviewing applicants.
It’s pretty clear that if someone was determined to merely fulfil their 40-job quota, and then concentrate on finding work they would actually like (or not), this new requirement is likely only to create a headache for the people tasked with sorting through job applicationsJobseekers' payments will be cut if they spam employers, ministers warn
So anything more than 40 you're in trouble?
When I saw the 40 applications a month figure, the first thing I thought of was Seek's profile setup. Heck you could even automate it if you wanted to, I bet.
I'm all in favour of getting people off the dole, but you would have to wonder if the people coming up with these policies have a clue how the present day world works.
One can imagine a vast new bureaucracy created just to sort out who among our steadily-growing unemployed ranks might be rorting. There should be plenty of work for those who are capable of sorting through Mount Everest-sized piles of paper/electronic application forms. It will be a private bureaucracy of course - as we all know, spending vast sums of public money contracting private sector providers to do things we could do without if the right policy approaches were taken is so much more effcient
Isn't it funny how the money for these sorts of things can be found but the money to create jobs at the basic wage to absorb those who the labour market does not want and give them some dignity as well as the means to earn a basic living can never be found?
The Abbott Government’s proposal for a work for the dole scheme is yet another win for economic zealotry over proven policy reform.
Work for the dole is an unimaginative and obsolete idea that is wheeled out from time to time when conservative governments pretend to do something about the complex problem of unemployment.
Every credible economist knows that the best way to tackle unemployment is with a policy strategy based on a dynamic mix of stronger, productivity-based economic growth; education, skills and training; and an appropriate degree of flexibility in workplace conditions.
The work for the dole scheme does not touch on any of these vital inputs to create jobs and lower unemployment, with the possible exception being the small influence of forcing people to gain the most basic of skills from doing something in an unpaid placement while they are still looking for a wage-paying job.
For a government that prides itself on reducing red tape, the proposed scheme will lead to an explosion of compliance, regulation and meaningless correspondence. Who, for example, is going to monitor the job application explosion? Who is going to receive the job applications and work through them? (Certainly business is outraged at the prospect of having to deal with what will inevitably be millions of job applications per month for something like 180,000 job vacancies Australia wide.)
Then there are some other facts, which make the scheme laughable and cringe-worthy, even for a well-meaning Year 12 economics student.
There are currently around 700,000 to 750,000 unemployed people and a further 500,000 people not in the labour force who would like paid work if a job opportunity emerged. This totals around 1.2 million people currently not in work who, by definition, are the potential supply of new labour into the economy as it grows and develops.
In other words, there are 1.2 million people competing for 180,000 job vacancies and that does not include people already in a job who are applying for a different role.
The framing of the work for the dole scheme fails on another test, and that is its failure to outline its objectives. Why is the government even considering such a scheme? How much will it add to employment while reducing the unemployment rate?
It is not even clear more jobs and lower unemployment are the objectives of the scheme, let alone whether the scheme aims to get 500,000 extra people into work or get the unemployment rate down to 4 percent or less.
Then there is the overarching shortcoming of the scheme that fails to deal with the issue of creating jobs that are worth doing, with a fair and decent wage paid for that job.
Instead of fluffing around with the red tape frenzy that is a work for the dole scheme, the government should be knuckling down to set the economy on a medium- to long-run path of stronger, productivity-based growth.
This is where a skilled and educated population is the absolute bedrock of getting unemployment down. In straightforward economic terms, when the economy grows, firms need easy access to suitable workers. The last time Australia recorded a strong growth upswing, many firms were lamenting the fact that there were insufficient workers to allow them to invest and expand. The so-called skills shortage or capacity constraint in business acted as a handbrake on the economy even though there were still around 500,000 unemployed and about the same number underemployed.
This is what labour market reform needs to address. Getting workers, those currently unemployed and those wanting to be in a salary-paying job, to have the skills that are needed as the economy continues to grow.
A market failure occurs when people miss out on the opportunity to maximise their knowledge, skills and education and therefore their income earning potential which is their potential contribution to a nation’s economy. This is why there is a vital role for government in financing access to education, skills and training. Well-crafted education and skills policy will, in time, do more to address the issue of job creation and unemployment than a cornball work for the dole scheme.
This is the policy path that has not only been overlooked by the current government, but has been actively discouraged through cuts to education funding, a slap dash approach to training and the move to a high fee based structure for university places.
While this article will long be forgotten in a decade or so, there is a risk that the current policy approach of the government will erode the skill set of the workforce with the work for the dole scheme a non-adhesive Band-Aid for a much larger issue of unemployment.
It would be most disappointing to see a skills shortage and a structural increase in the unemployment rate due to this dumbing down of the workforce and if the work for the dole scheme comes to pass and is in place for any length of time, it could be the watershed for such an outcome.
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