Turns Out There Really Aren’t Enough Jobs Going Around

Well, it turns out there really aren’t enough jobs going around. That’s according to a new report that suggests the government should do away with mutual obligations and forced engagement with its Workforce Australia platform, because there simply aren’t enough entry-level positions going. 

According to Anglicare’s most recent available jobs snapshot, Australia has a serious shortage of entry level jobs. It found that there are currently 15 people for every available job, leaving people with barriers to work “struggling to compete with higher-skilled candidates”. 

“Throughout Australia, there is no region with enough entry-level jobs to meet demand. The situation is most dire in Tasmania, where almost six jobseekers with barriers to work are competing for each…position,” the report said. 

Matters are only further complicated by the Australian Bureau of Statistic (ABS)’s definition of unemployment and “underemployment”.

To be considered unemployed by the ABS, you have to be actively looking for work in the month leading up to the survey, and be available to start work in the week since you were surveyed. 

Anglicare said the definition distorts Australia’s perception of the state of unemployment across the country, and what it’s like to actually get a job for those facing barriers to work like living with a disability, or carer duties, to actually “get a look in” to entry-level roles. 

Australia’s unemployment rate has been steadily declining over the last three years. In October, the unemployment rate fell to 3.4 percent, the lowest level seen since records began. 

“The results show that many people have been left out of the dominant narrative about jobs in Australia—a narrative that assures us we are in the midst of a jobs boom, and that the inability to find a job is an individual failure instead of structural one,” the report said. 

“Those who need the most help to find work, and those who are likely to be long-term unemployed, are not benefitting from the recovery in the labour force. People are being forced to look for jobs they can’t get.”

As it stands, the system designed to help jobseekers compete is doing nothing to help them. 

Despite a recent overhaul, the federal government’s new brand of employment services—“Workforce Australia”—continues to make life hell for unemployed people. It’s currently the subject of an inquiry, and has been the source of widespread distress since it was first rolled out around the country in July this year. 

The platform, which replaced the outgoing JobActive platform and was introduced by the new Albanese government without any sort of transition period, forced jobseekers to endure ongoing technical issues for weeks, and left some unable to log in, report, and in turn, receive their income support payments.

Beyond its technical difficulties, though, jobseekers have broadly reported the platform to be unnecessarily punitive, and add extra layers of automation that invariably lead to even harsher penalties than previously seen.

As a result, Anglicare said the shift only really benefits the providers that the government is paying to manage the nation’s unemployment caseload. It should be replaced, they said, with a system that is tailored and “person-centred”, and more like the system that jobseekers want. 

“People should not be forced to participate in a failing system, and Anglicare Australia recommends an end to compulsory participation and abandonment of mutual obligations,” the report said. 

“With so few jobs available or attainable for people with barriers to employment, mutual obligation requirements are pointless and demoralising for job seekers. People are being forced to submit applications for jobs they will never get, or participate in training that will do little to improve their job prospects.”