Cherie Grant has spent the last week frantically searching for answers.
Key points:
- Nearly 800,000 Australian jobseekers are about to be transferred to a new service called Workforce Australia
- A new point-based system for mutual obligations is also entering
- Welfare advocates say there is very little awareness of how the new system will work
After discovering last week through social media a major overhaul of how unemployed Australians like her should relate to the government from next month, the 47-year-old worried.
Despite several attempts to figure out how the changes will affect her, the Melbourne woman and university student, who has been living with chronic back and neck pain and has been paying JobSeeker since 2018, remains in the dark.
“I’ve been to my employment agency, but they don’t know anything about it and I’ve been trying to contact Centrelink and I can’t get it,” he said.
“I tried searching online … and [there was] nothing that seemed to represent clearly my state and what I should do. “
Cherie Grant has been living with JobSeeker since 2018. (ABC News: Danielle Bonica)
In early July, jobactive, the Australian government’s main unemployment services program, will be replaced by a new service called Workforce Australia, which will immediately affect some 792,000 people.
Jobactive’s goal was to help people with Centrelink payments apply for jobs or additional training, but social groups criticized it as “punitive.”
A Senate committee in 2019 found that “it was not fit for purpose.”
Although Workforce Australia has been up and running in less than a month, Ms Grant said she lives in the limbo.
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And she seems not alone: Welfare advocates say they have been receiving a large number of reports from people who say the new system has not been properly explained to them.
What exactly is changing?
As of July 4, some 169,000 “job-ready” participants will be transferred to an online portal to manage their job searches, while another 592,000 will be referred to a new face-to-face job provider.
What is Workforce Australia?
- It’s a new “gateway” service that replaces jobactive, with the goal of helping people find and keep jobs
- It consists of two streams, one of which is an online portal
- The other is a face-to-face service where “more tailored support” is available.
- The model was based on “extensive collaboration” and research during a trial period
People forced to fulfill mutual obligations (tasks and activities designed to help people find work) will also move on to what is called a Point-Based Activation System (PBAS).
They will have to accumulate 100 points per month, obtained through activities such as submitting job applications or training courses, to continue receiving their payments.
Score targets may be reduced based on “personal circumstances” and additional points may be transferred next month, according to the Department of Education, Skills and Employment (DESE) website.
The PBAS replaces the current system in which jobseekers have to submit 20 job applications per month.
Welfare advocates say the changes could make people more involved with each other than current rules.
Job seekers will soon have to earn 100 points a month at PBAS to make sure their pay is not reduced (AAP: Dan Peled)
For example, under the PBAS, a person who works full-time for the Dole program would only earn 20 points a week, which means he or she would have to complete other activities in addition to maintaining his or her payments.
Dole work will also be mandatory for people after six months in the face-to-face flow, instead of the current 12, although people will only have to do it for two months instead of six.
Attending a job interview or starting a job will be worth 20 points according to the PBAS, and completing an application, five points.
“Absolutely terrified”
Kristin O’Connell, a spokeswoman for the Anti-Poverty Center, said the “dramatic” changes have not been explained in sufficient detail, causing fear and confusion among the hundreds of thousands of people to whom it will apply.
“We will have people trying to figure out how to navigate a new system while worrying about losing payment at a time when costs are out of control,” he said.
Ms O’Connell said there was also concern that the new online system would mean an increase in “computer-based decisions”.
“Governments do not have a good track record in providing digital services in this country, and we do not expect the deployment of technology … to go smoothly,” he said.
“We don’t have high hopes that people will understand their options or feel supported when they try to browse the system online or face to face.”
Ms. Grant is worried about having to do more than she can “physically face.”
Life is already hard to survive with his $ 48 daily JobSeeker payment, which is considered to be below the poverty line.
“I’m worried that if what I have to do for Centrelink becomes too physically demanding for me, will I have to drop out of school? I don’t know, I can’t know because I can’t talk to them.”
“A lot of people are probably in more precarious situations … I’m very, very worried about myself, but also about other people.”
Kristin O’Connell says the launch of the new system has been confusing. (ABC News: Adam Wyatt)
The ABC listened to a number of job seekers deeply concerned about the changes who did not want to be publicly identified or openly spoken out for fear of reprisals.
A single mother living in Gippsland, Victoria, said she was “absolutely terrified” of the PBAS and how she would collect 100 points each month.
“It’s stressing a lot of people and a lot of people are very scared, especially people with health issues and people with children,” he said.
“Mutual obligations are unrealistic when you live in a small town. If I had to live [closer to a city] there would be many more opportunities and there would be many more jobs. But being in a small town, they still give you the same amount [to do]. “
What do suppliers think?
Sally Sinclair, director general of the National Employment Services Association, the highest body in the contracted employment services sector, said the “principles” of the reforms had good support from the sector.
“I think people really want to be able to work in a way that is intended to … provide more intensive services to people who are further away from the job market.”
He said having to relocate about 592,000 people to new job providers on July 4 and start them with a new work plan would be a challenge, but in the past there have been similar scale transitions.
The changes to Workforce Australia were approved under the Morrison government following a trial that began in 2019 in South Australia and New South Wales.
The office of new Employment Minister Tony Burke declined to comment.
Posted 3 hours 3 hours agoWednesday, June 8, 2022 at 8:04 PM, updated 1 hour ago 1 hours agoWednesday, June 8, 2022 at 10:07 PM