Outsourced employment consultants who are not required to have qualifications have used their powers to impose 5.2 million penalties on welfare recipients since July 2015.

The government's JobActive program, where job seekers receiving government payments such as the unemployment benefit Newstart must attend meetings with private job service providers, has been in place since July 2015, and the arrangement is up for review in 2020.

Greens senator Rachel Siewert said the evidence showed the JobActive program was flawed. Credit:Fairfax Media

A Senate inquiry into how appropriate and effective the program is heard on Thursday the program wasn't "fit for purpose" and needed to be fundamentally reformed.

Advocates described job seekers often felt the employment consultants were managing too many cases, and that their case workers weren't necessarily focused on finding the right job for the job seeker, and had limited knowledge of the job market. The committee heard there was no qualification required for people to fill these roles, which often supported vulnerable, long-term unemployed people.