Dole changes: Government backs down on plan to make unemployed apply for 40 jobs a month; facing calls to cut six-month waiting period for benefits

Updated

The Government's backdown on forcing jobseekers to apply for 40 positions a month has prompted fresh calls for it to dump a plan to withhold the dole for young unemployed people.

The Government wants to force jobseekers under the age of 30 to wait up to six months before they can access unemployment benefits, in a bid to stop them becoming reliant on welfare.

In July, it also announced people receiving the dole would have to apply for 40 jobs a month to keep the payment.

But Employment Services Minister Eric Abetz has dumped that plan in favour of the current requirement to apply for 20 jobs a month.

"Whilst we are very strongly of the view that a job seeker should have as their full-time job gaining employment, we do understand that for business it would be a burden and it might diminish the value of job applications if we have too many applications being undertaken," he told the ABC's AM program.

His Opposition counterpart Brendan O'Connor slammed the Government over its "absurd" policy.

"They sought to get a headline in the newspapers with the 40 job applications," Mr O'Connor said.

"[They] didn't think through the implications, didn't think that this would mean 30 million job applications a month when there's not even a couple of hundred thousand jobs on offer.

Mr O'Connor said the Government should now reconsider the policy to not support jobseekers under 30.

"If that were to be enacted, we're going to have young people under the age of 30 deprived of any form of resources, more likely to be homeless, more likely to turn to anti-social behaviour," he said.

"It's bad social policy, it's bad economic policy and it's very hard on those young people who are looking for work."

Greens leader Christine Milne also wants that idea dropped.

"I now want the Government to abandon their six-months-on-nothing routine," she said.

"That is a very bad idea, it is not based on any evidence and it needs to go."

But Senator Abetz said the Government wanted to "do the very best" for the unemployed.

"The data is overwhelming - if you are unemployed, the physical health, mental health, self-esteem, social interaction of that individual are all diminished," he said.

He rejected the suggestion the Government formed its policies based on a belief that unemployed people do not try hard enough.

"We have a very strong view that it should be the task of every job seeker to make it their full-time job to gain employment, and that would have been seeking one job every morning and another every afternoon," he told AM.

"So it's not a onerous burden on the job seeker but it could lead to less valuable job applications being made especially in certain areas where there aren't as many jobs available, and also it would have been a burden especially on small business."

The Government has today launched a tender process for a new $5.1 billion employment services plan and work for the dole scheme to operate from five years from July 1 next year.

Under the work for the dole changes, Senator Abetz said under-30s would be required to do 25 hours per week for six months a year, and those between 30 and 50 would have to work up to 15 hours per week for six months a year.

He has also announced that decisions on penalties for not turning up to a job interview would continue to be made by the Department of Human Services.

Topics: unemployment, federal-parliament, federal-government, government-and-politics, australia

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