Tony Abbott says shorter roles offer a ‘stepping stone into secure long-term jobs’ but Labor says it is simply the revival of a failed Howard-era policy and will increase jobseeker churn

This article is more than 5 years old

This article is more than 5 years old

Employment service providers will be offered cash incentives to place jobseekers in short-term positions as well as longer term ones under changes announced by the federal government on Tuesday.

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,” the prime minister, Tony Abbott, told reporters in Geelong.

“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.”



Abbott said short-term work was “the best possible stepping stone into secure long-term jobs”.

“The best preparation for work is work,” the prime minister said.

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”, ACTU secretary Dave Oliver said.

“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, which comes off the back of the Howard-era Job Network policy, has been panned by Labor.

“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 job seekers into decent work. Instead it will lead to increased jobseeker churn and job insecurity.”

O’Connor said that the Coalition must not take resources away from jobs training.

“Labor is deeply concerned that the new employment services model will in fact leave job seekers without the support they need,” he said.



Under the jobactive scheme, money for training will be provided only if jobseekers need it to secure a position that has already been advertised. Job agencies will have to risk their own money to provide individuals with training they think will be needed to gain employment more broadly.

David Thompson from the peak organisation representing non-profit employment services, Jobs Australia, welcomed the jobactive scheme, but warned that the training element “might be too restrictive”.

He said many long-term unemployed people needed training to reorient themselves to workplaces before applying for specific jobs, and that training could help jobseekers whose industries were suffering job losses.

“The labour market of today and the labour market of tomorrow are very different,” Thompson said.

The 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 put in tenders. Their contracts will last for five years rather than three, a move the government said will provide certainty for service providers.

The new scheme begins on July 1 and also includes targeted programs for Indigenous jobseekers based on the work undertaken by mining magnate Andrew Twiggy Forrest, who has conducted a review into Indigenous jobs and training.

“He has been a real apostle of getting away from this training for training’s sake notion and ensuring that people are being prepared, not for training but for work,” Abbott said of Forrest.

The government will implement job targets for Indigenous jobseekers for the first time under the new initiative. The targets will vary from region to region.



“The targets will ensure that employment service providers are finding jobs for Indigenous jobseekers at the same rate as for other job seekers in a region,” a spokesman for the Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, told Guardian Australia.

“Providers will also be held accountable for their performance in meeting these targets through the star ratings system. A poor performance will affect an organisation’s star ratings and this will have an impact on whether they are given any future business from the government.”