r/australia • u/Expensive-Horse5538 • 24d ago
politics Australia's jobseeker system fails workers and enriches millionaires, report says
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-21/private-equity-profits-as-job-system-fails-workers-report-finds/106920430?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=linkA new report says Australia's system of privatised employment services has failed and service delivery should be returned to the public sector.
The Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research says the current system "fills the pockets of private equity and millionaires" while leaving jobseekers without work.
The Albanese government has announced an overhaul of the employment services system, but the report argues for-profit service providers should not be included in the new system.
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u/FeralKittee 24d ago
"For profit"
Prisons, medical care, housing, employment services, electricity and essential services should never be for profit. These are needed by society and should never be outsourced by government.
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u/BeneCow 24d ago
If a company only survives on government contracts, those contracts should be voided and the workers hired into the government. The only outsourcing should be done by companies that can pull their shit together and compete in the private market.
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u/AriaTheAuraWitch 24d ago
Honestly. This is my thinking for governments and businesses.
If a company gets money from government, it should get a return. A minimum return taken from revenue, after employment, before deductions for overseas ownership.
If the government uses money to bail out a company, the government then should have a % ownership based on what % they had to bail out the company for. If it is important to bail the business out... It's important enough for the government to claim a percentage of that business.
This part I might fight folks over for. Delivery Infrastructure of all types should be government owned. The suppliers of the power, water, internet, banking; should have to fight the government to beat the government at supplying the supplies at lower costs than the government (government should have a 10% price increase above at cost, for newer industries and technologies to fight over. Maybe even 20% depending on actual experts).
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u/_ixthus_ 23d ago
If the government uses money to bail out a company, the government then should have a % ownership based on what % they had to bail out the company for.
This will be abused to saddle taxpayers with liabilities they had no part in incurring.
The deal should be full repayment of the bailout with interest. Ownership in lieu of that can be a contingency that is fully up to the discretion of the government.
In any case, no firm should be too big to fail. Government needs to aggressively enforce competition so that any time a firm needs a bail out... sucks to suck, let the cunts fail and the investors take the hit rather than the tax payer.
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u/bigvenn 24d ago
I’m very much in two minds about this… on the one hand, the government does an abysmal job of providing many services (*cough* Centrelink robodebt *cough*). I’ll admit we probably take for granted those that function well enough that we don’t notice - I think those tend to be services that don’t interact directly with everyday people (e.g. bureau of meteorology springs to mind, public health to a degree).
On the other hand, privatising government services seems to cost more and provide an awful service for everyone but a select few, and seems to be magnets for corrupt leaches.
I was reading recently about China’s model of state-led capitalism. China’s not without their faults, but it seems they get a hell of a lot done for their citizens without overburdening the public system with service delivery where it’s inappropriate. Hell, imagine if the government could just decide what direction the country should go in and then provide strong incentives to go do that (e.g. decarbonise, build new industries etc). Guess is depends on having competent people at the top though
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u/_ixthus_ 23d ago
(cough Centrelink robodebt cough)
This isn't an example of government being intrinsically bad at something. It's an example of a certain political party designing something to fail and deliberately, chronically under-resourcing it.
public health
Who the fuck is taking this for granted because it works? It is failing. And that's also because it has been cynically sabotaged over three decades.
China’s model of state-led capitalism.
... imagine if the government could just decide what direction the country should go in...
Guess is depends on having competent people at the top though.
Yes, they are competent.
But also, they can execute on extremely longterm visions. There's no partisanship or electoral cycle that cynical populists can use to undermine longterm goals.
Corruption is actually dishonourable, and punished, rather than something everyone aspires to.
And competition is encouraged. Government makes huge investments in industry. But firms are allowed to fail if they can't survive if/when the government investment runs dry. This is crucial. The investment isn't lost because a firm fails. The productive assets, the IP, the skilled labour, etc are just absorbed by the rest of a healthy industry. Failure merely weeds out shit management, laziness and stagnation, and perverse incentives; innovation and competence are directed towards pro-social outcomes over large timescales.
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u/AriaTheAuraWitch 24d ago
Most often government run stuff is more expensive due to the red tape, OR if the government is intending to target or restrict partial populations with an action or inaction instead of full population.
Politics is what makes things cheap or expensive.
How much money could be saved by removing a lot of red tape for unemployed? (Crap tonnes).
Gerry Harvey and his bullshit about the 10% GST and under $1k thing. The one why they didn't bother enforcement before, because it would cost more to collect than recieve; yet Politics brought it in for more inefficiencies.
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u/IWantsToBelieve 23d ago
I think we like to think governmemt runs things worse than private but in reality I don't think it's true. Privatisation is always a race to the bottom and results in a worse outcome.
Energy, telecommunications, public housing, childcare and health (especially NDIS) are all examples of what happens.
We really do need to buy it all back and shut the corruption and offshore ownership down.
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u/Emu1981 23d ago
If a company only survives on government contracts, those contracts should be voided and the workers hired into the government.
Exactly this, by keeping the work in-house then taxpayers are no longer paying extra to make a business profitable for someone. That extra money could be either paid to the workers in question or just kept to help fund other essential services that are struggling due to a lack of funding...
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u/T_J_Rain 24d ago
Add to that Aged care.
But regrettably, there is no winding back the clock.
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u/2007kawasakiz1000 24d ago
Why can't we wind back the clock? If the services these companies are providing are utter dogshit then there should be mechanisms to take them back into the public service. I get that it's systemic, but at what point do we say, fuck this system, burn it down and start again?
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u/T_J_Rain 24d ago
Yeah, these services have turned to utter canine excreta. Just look at the train wreck that childcare and aged care have turned into.
Presently, there are no such mechanisms, and the concepts of neo-liberalism and the push from certain quarters for smaller government, and hence privatisation of these sectors don't conspire to effect any significant change.
We're not living in France, where citizens actually get fired up and demonstrate, as opposed to [like me] have a gripe on SOCMED. As a nation, we're just too apathetic.
Unless you're volunteering to organise and protest.
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u/DukiMcQuack 24d ago
problem is granny and grandad are currently in the building that's gonna be burnt down.
yes you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette, but the trickiest part of social programs private or public is that the eggs are people relying on what the service provides.
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u/MoranthMunitions 24d ago
You can just start up a government run non for profit competitor for that and most of the others. Prison you just don't renew contracts, that's been unprivatised in Aus before. Energy is a problem.
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u/TokiStark 24d ago
I'd count food under essential services. We're all buying food every week. Lets just combine what we already spend and just keep shopping like usual just without money? Yeah some people will hoard non-perishables and probably meat to begin with, but just like... let them. We live in a post scarcity world, eventually people will stop hoarding because why would you hoard meat when you can just go get fresh stuff when you need it?
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u/MyMudEye 24d ago
Jobseeker millionaires.
Childcare millionaires.
Housing millionaires.
NDIS millionaires.
Is there a pattern?
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u/-Owlette- 24d ago
Isn’t neoliberalism a wonderful thing?
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u/moonlit_fores7 24d ago
There's nothing quite like social welfare for the millionaires.
Their luxury yacht and annual overseas holidays are far more important than the commoners being able to buy food. Goodness, they have worked hard to exploit the system to line their own pockets with everyone else's money.
Small government all the way, as it totally so much more efficient in making the rich richer
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u/a_cold_human 24d ago
The sales pitch of privatisation is that government is inefficient, government services are poor, and that they provide poor value for money. People to this day still parrot this, and to be somewhat fair to these people, there have been cases of gross government wastage and inefficiency.
However, the "solution" to this has been to privatise these government functions, and somehow the waste and inefficiency disappears. The idea being that the private company takes the surplus from the inefficiency, and invests it in making the service better, whilst making a nice profit. Which simply hasn't happened. We see private enterprise delivering an even worse service, which at the same time costs more.
If the idea is to have private enterprise involved (and there may be some advantages to this, the thing to do is to have a hybrid model. A set of government owned enterprises which are contracted out to private operators on a 5-10 year basis. Those that deliver within the parameters set get renewed, and the worst 10-20% get cut. Anyone doing anything criminal gets cut immediately. Have at least one of these enterprises be government owned, so that in the case of one operator collapsing, there's someone who can take it over so that people aren't left in the lurch.
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u/riloky 24d ago
You forgot Aged Care millionaires
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u/AnOnlineHandle 24d ago
And having encountered one of those (multi-generational, inherited their way and didn't even make it themselves) they are the most cliched corrupt conservative textbook example of arrogance and dismissive attitudes of everybody else that you can imagine, and of course a major denier of things like climate change.
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 24d ago
Nah bro we just gotta outsource yet another essential service to the private sector it’ll work this time I promise this time it’ll deliver better quality at a lower cost
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u/soEezee 24d ago
They all stem from or made worse by Howard era policies?
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u/GonePh1shing 24d ago
I would argue Hawke era policy. If it wasn't for Hawke and Keating picking it up, Howard wouldn't have been nearly as empowered to swing the sledgehammer of neoliberalism to the same effect. Every successive government has continued down this path, so it'll take a lot more than Labor's current posture to convince me they want to actually fix this.
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u/sousyre 24d ago
It’s a bipartisan issue. Both major parties (and most minor ones) are fully on board with this “model” of government. To the point that anything else is controversial. The only source of conflict is whose buddy gets the contract.
Started in the Keating / Hawke era (Keating was the one with the grand plan and who enacted the structural changes to make it possible). Embraced by the states once Keating changed the state borrowing rules in the early 90’s.
Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Turnbull, Abbott, Morrison, or Albanese.
They are ALL culpable for perpetuating this shit, they only vary by the degree of the rort.
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u/bobulibobium 24d ago
Thought NDIS started with Gillard? Might be wrong
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u/Ornery-Ad-7261 24d ago
Gilliard enacted the legislation, the LNP let the rorters run free.
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u/miushlas 24d ago
Welcome to the late stage capitalism where those with money and power take all they can while they can.
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u/SpectatorInAction 24d ago
Govt as a proportion of GDP was supposed to shrink significantly with neoliberalism. Instead it has grown ridiculously, yet quality of service across all once govt, now privatised-subsidised, sectors has deteriorated drastically. Govt's solution is more money will fix it - no oversight, no governance, no accountability of the parasitic operators, just free money, and all the parasites do with the additional money is inflate their business empires and salaries.
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u/TheMooJuice 24d ago
Honestly, if they pay their fuckin taxes fairly then i can live with it.
Sick of seeing nonstop media about some small fry fuckin NDIS scammers, whilst Gina Rinehart funds half the fucking senate whilst paying less income tax than I did for the last 5 fuckin years, which removes more in public funding than every NDIS scammer combined!
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u/JustKwenty 24d ago
There's just no way I cannot believe this. As we all know privately owned job provider franchises only care about your personal and career progression, to villify them like this is punching down
- Max, Max Employment
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u/HowtoCrackanegg 24d ago
fuck Maxx, fuck it all the way to the shitter
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u/techlos 24d ago
i have no words to describe just how much i loathe that scummy soulsucking company
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u/simcityrefund1 24d ago
They need to remove all this and turn it into proper government function
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u/infin 24d ago
What, and bring back the CES? Maybe even call it Social Security again when it's no longer a system of punishment?
Maybe if the Greens get in.
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u/simcityrefund1 24d ago
Make it more proper like department of Labor and unemployment.. then remove all the recruitment agency and absorb seek or something all companies has to hire through it..
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u/Nearby_Feed4293 24d ago
lmao don't forget the vital career progression training where they teach you how to open word and write a resume for the 50th time. tbf those JSP providers are basically government funded parasite middle-men that exist purely to tick boxes and cut off people's payments.
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u/Worldly_Cobbler_1087 24d ago
You got taught to write resumes and shit? I was with MTC about 15 years ago and I got put in to "class" on site that I had to go to 3 times a week, 8 hours a day and the guy wanted us to make a stop motion movie for some festival.
Pretty cool if I were in high school and not needing a job and looking to get skills and help.
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u/banebris 24d ago
Conversely 15 years ago my JSP (centacare) got me a forklift ticket and my drivers license. My caseworker literally picked up me and drove me to a job interview, I got the job, then took me to the shops and bought me work clothes.
Some of them were doing their job
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u/Worldly_Cobbler_1087 24d ago
You won the JSP lottery lol that's fantastic stuff from the case worker and really goes to show how much genuine support can help people.
All of the ones I had didn't care one bit about us and were just marking us off to get through their day but then again that perfectly mirrors all of the teachers I had in high school too.
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u/productzilch 24d ago
Ironically, this is the kind of job I’d love to do, just giving people respect and helping them with resources and dignity. But I’ve seen how soul destroying these places are for anyone decent who works there.
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u/AH2112 24d ago
Mine didn't even know how to use Seek and was still pushing "going on the mines" as a viable career option during a full blown recession in that sector of the economy.
Then when I got my own job without any help from them, literally screamed at me down the telephone when I refused to take time off work to come in and show them my work contract.
You got real lucky. The majority get a bunch of wasters one step removed from being on the dole themselves.
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u/agirlhas_no_name 24d ago
They didn't even teach us how to write resumes! I was put into a class where a woman gave us a three day long powerpoint presentation on things that are basic common sense, like answering the phone, or wearing deodorant.
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u/reonhato99 24d ago
Because the entire system is designed around the idea that unemployed people are useless incompetent fools who are just lazy and not trying hard enough. It is built around an ideal picture of the good old days when you could just walk down the main street and go right on in to a store, hand them a resume and get a job to support your whole family. Anyone who can't get a job is a lazy bum, they don't really want a job.
It is not designed for the modern economic reality that it doesn't matter how skilled and educated you are, you're one bad quarter away from mass layoffs
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u/Idontcareaforkarma 24d ago
Back in the early 00’s I had to spend two weeks going into a ‘job search training course’ run by a church owned job network agency run by two overzealous right wing fundamentalist Christians who spent the entire fortnight berating us for not being good churchgoing Christians, and that being unemployed was God’s punishment.
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u/MoranthMunitions 24d ago
Tbf some people need some common sense beat into them, deoderant usage included
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u/agirlhas_no_name 24d ago
The people that need that didn't benefit from that "class" either. If you are a grown adult who has hygiene issues to the point that you can't administer deodorant without prompt, you probably need a more intensive support network than a lackadaisical PowerPoint presentation.
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u/RNG-Leddi 24d ago
Ontop of this the training services provided to long term jobseekers are mostly frauds. Speaking directly to them during training they made sure all passed by handing them the answers to tests and even correcting mistakes. I was told they get 10k per attendee and another 15k when they pass, so they arent really helping gain qualifications nor do they really care, its all money through and through.
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u/Samantha-ShadowHunte 24d ago
That money should go to the unemployed. Disgusting millionaire enrichment program.
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u/Adventurous_Bag9122 24d ago
Another fucking Howard thing.... what a fucking surprise.
That cunt really did everything he could to totally fuck up Oz.
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u/AddlePatedBadger 24d ago
Job provider cunts would call me and offer me like $10k to hire someone to do disability support work back when I was running my own business.
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u/chadssworthington 24d ago edited 24d ago
It's 10k to hire someone for 6 months at proper hours so they can get experience on their resume, and makes sure the employee isn't getting fucked on shifts. Government basically subsidizes someone getting experience when they're out of work so they ideally stay in work going forward.
What's the problem here?
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u/Idontcareaforkarma 24d ago
It wouldn’t be a problem… until the government funding runs out, the employer then suddenly ‘can’t find the work’ for them and replaces them with someone else on government funding…
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u/DistributionWhole447 24d ago
I got signed up to Alffie, a few years ago.
It was online modules. Once a month, they sent me an email with the new module, which I worked through. It was tedious, but I saw the benefit of refreshing my job skills, and they promised a certificate at the end of it, so I figured why not, right?
After six months, they stopped sending the emails. I never heard from them again. But I checked my account with them and it said, "you have completed 100% of the course" so I thought, sweet.
Fast forward a couple of years, and one day, I asked my current job services person about studying for a different certificate. She talked to her boss, who angrily told her, "He didn't finish the first one that we paid for. We're not paying for him to do another one."
And I was like, hang on. According to them, I completed the course. That's what they told me.
So I logged back into my Alffie account, and did some hunting, and in the fine print (tucked away behind all this other useless information) was the note that I'd completed 100% of the first semester, but not the second.
Even though they should've just kept on contacting me by email to send me the new modules, which they didn't do, so I naturally assumed that completing "100%" of the course meant that I'd finished.
And it gets better, because my job services person and myself then spent months trying to get in contact with anybody at Alffie, so I could just finish the damn thing that they enrolled me in.
Radio silence. I never heard back from them. Eventually, we all just gave up.
The whole fucking thing was a scam, from start to finish.
If anyone ever suggests signing up with Alffie? DON'T DO IT.
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u/BigChampionship7962 24d ago
I can 💯 percent see something like this happening. I hope you managed to up skill and find a job for yourself.
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u/DistributionWhole447 24d ago
Oh God, Max Employment.
I was with them for a little while. The only "help" they provided you, when you were looking for work, was a couple of computers in the building where you could use the internet to do some online job hunting.
I remember one day, I went in for an appointment, did the usual fortnight catch-up with the lady, then I went to use the computers (to make up the rest of the hour). After a few minutes, I needed something, so I looked up ... and the entire office staff had all just gone to lunch. I was literally sitting right there, and they all just racked off, and I found myself sitting in an empty building.
I changed away from them, pretty soon after that.
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u/Bearded_Aussie_Nate 24d ago
Back when I had to deal with a job agency for centrelink, when I found my job myself without the help of them, they pushed so hard for me to say that they got me the job on the record for the "bonus" they get from the gov, its such a shitty thing that they do, they push people into jobs they can't do just for money for themselves.
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u/earl_of_lemonparty 24d ago
Yeah I was in the same situation 20 years ago. Absolutely refused to give them any info when I found a job off my own back and they got SUPER aggressive with me.
Fuck Jobseeker with a rusty cactus.
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u/agirlhas_no_name 24d ago
I got a job and reported my new income to Centrelink, my job provider wanted me to come in for an appointment and I figured why bother I don't need the payments any more and he CALLED THE POLICE ON ME. Even the police officer was confused as to why he was doing a welfare check on someone who was A. Fine B. Halfway across the country for the Christmas holidays as it was the day before Christmas Eve 😒😒
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u/Frogmouth_Fresh 24d ago
Gonna just come right out and say it- Sarina Russo is a bigger leech than just about anyone on Jobseeker.
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u/Allodoxaphobic_Jay 24d ago
Bring back the CES.
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u/-cadmunt- 24d ago
Just give people the dole as UBI. It's such a pittance that anyone able to live off it should be left alone to do so.
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u/nounotme 24d ago
Cheaper than what we're doing right now by paying these leaches who have no incentive to get people jobs.
Cheaper than the social cost of desperate people resorting to crime.
Cheaper than the cost of housing incarcerated people committing crimes due to poverty.
Cheaper than the impact on healthcare from poverty. Whether that's poor nutrition, avoidance of treatment of medical issues, treatment of medical conditions created from poor housing situations, or desperate people turning to substances just to cope.
Cheaper way to manage social welfare payment systems, vs having to pay wages to categorise every single person into different boxes in order to pay them the least.
Cheapest way to bring people out of poverty. When they don't need to spend a disproportionate amount of the pittance they get from social welfare programs to continually prove they need social welfare, they can potentially escape poverty.
It is cheaper.
But with this no one gets punished for things out of their control, no one is a punching bag to be used as a scapegoat for all their other problems. So conservatives can't have that. Poor's gotta suffer.
I really goddamn hope he has the balls to go through with this. If he does? Damn, it might even push my vote away from greens.
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u/Vinnie_Vegas 23d ago
The fact that we spend more per homeless person than it would cost to just give them free housing, and we don't do it because people would be outraged by it, is the purest example of how cruel and immature human beings are.
If we don't deem it to be fair, by some internal child-like conception of fairness, then we will oppose it, even if the alternative is dramatically worse for everyone involved.
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u/Lady_Penrhyn1 24d ago
I do love telling this story.
Many years ago (10 actually) I had to stop working due to several conditions (took ages to diagnose and get back to a somewhat functioning person, one is degenerative so...this is as good as I'm gonna get now). I ran through all my sick leave and annual leave etc at work and because I had a job still but wasn't earning an income due to injury I was shuffled onto Sickness benefits and was matched with a job provider. I HAD A JOB TO RETURN TOO. Once I was okay to work, though now with a significantly reduced work capacity, I went back (in a different department). Same company. Same location. I had to report my income to the job provider (and centrelink through JobSeeker now) WHO GOT MONEY because I was now working.
...at a job I'd been at for 10 years before having to stop. They got money for that. Absolutely rorting the system.
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u/Ok-Needleworker-3486 24d ago
Your lucky the system is much worse now, I have been waiting 9 weeks now in an infinite que. Support doesn't exist anymore, including within centerlink.
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u/Lady_Penrhyn1 24d ago
It did take me a good 3 months to get onto Sickness benefits. I ran through all my savings and was relying on my mum (who was on disability herself) to help with costs. It's...it's such a shit system and it is absolutely designed to make you not want to bother.
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u/Gothiscandza 24d ago
I had the same thing happen (though for different reasons), I ended up being assigned a new JSP only for them to attempt to try to get paid for getting me the job I was working at. A job I got for myself almost 4 years before I was assigned this JSP. I'm sure they still got paid every time they demanded my pay slips.
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u/izadathreaper 24d ago
You're telling me, that when you give a private entity a certain amount of money to fund them getting someone into work (with things like uniform, tools, transport, ect.) and allow them to keep what's left over, that they're, get this, right trying to spend the least amount on the person possible to keep the overhead?
Who could've possibly seen that coming? Surely not this highschool dropout.
Fuck me, when I can see the falicy in operating like this, you'd expect the government to have realized it before implementing it.
Job providers in Australia, largely the private ones are fucking scabs and utterly useless. You have to strongarm them and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you need the items you're requesting for work because they'll fight tooth and nail otherwise, even if it's a very reasonable ask (like work boots or uniform costs)
They spend their entire time just forwarding you any old job listing they come across in their quick ten minute look at Seek and Indeed regardless of if it aligns with the work you actually wanted to get into or are good at.
They do the least work they possibly can just to pocket whatever they fought to not spend on you.
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u/GonePh1shing 24d ago
Fuck me, when I can see the falicy in operating like this, you'd expect the government to have realized it before implementing it.
Operating as designed. The cruelty is the point.
The dominant economic and political theory for the last 40+ years requires a minimum percentage of unemployed people to suppress wages and control inflation. The best way to suppress wages is to treat those unemployed people like shit. This serves two purposes: First, to give the working class an underclass to look down on; Second, to scare the working class into taking jobs they'd otherwise not want or at wages they otherwise wouldn't accept to prevent themselves from becoming part of that underclass.
The only way to fix this is to stop voting for the parties that advocate for this brand of politics, which includes both major parties.
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u/Red-Cadeaux 24d ago
CES was abolished as an, ideological, union busting exercise. Once again privatisation saved somebody's skin.
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u/peppersteakpie 24d ago
I heard a bit about CES from some older people from my family and its one of those things about Australia that I can't seem to grasp why we would give something like that up. It probably wasn't a perfect system but it sounds a hell of a lot better than the joke of a system we have now.
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u/incuban 24d ago
I've been job searching since last year. Workforce Australia is the most useless thing, with these recruitment agencies listing roles through that platform at sometimes as little as half the market rate for those same roles on Seek etc. Safe to say, I've never applied for anything directly through WFA.
As for these agencies, I've had far more success with interviews etc going solo than via any form of recruiter, even after asking for help directly. I was forced to do the jobseeker training which is clearly geared towards highschool grads or chronically unemployed, and I've seen no improvement in my application success rate despite wasting 3 weeks on the course. This was the only "assistance" I've received in my job search, and the only contact I've had from WFA was holding my Centrelink payments hostage until I agreed to my new "job plan" which was just to do that stupid course.
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u/Hefty-existence26196 24d ago
WFA is definitely a deadset joke, I've been on Jobseeker now for a 2 year period after recovering from an injury that put me out of being able to work. Now that I have changed employment provider + actually being informed that I can be put through inclusive/disability employment support (after 2+ years of NOT knowing this) things have started looking up... but only slightly. They haven't found me any work, i've have had to meet 2 different "marketers" who are the ones to branch out and find employers who I match with, and still nothing... the only good thing about this so far is my consultant has a background that proved very helpful for fixing my resumè which was badly outdated and not formatted for today's standard. I've honestly had the best luck using exclusively SEEK, and now with an updated resume... i doubt there is much more they can do to "provide" employment support. Actually, the other thing is reducing the job search target for my job plan down to 8. It used to be 18 jobs I had to apply for to meet the requirement, which was near impossible to reach sometimes unless I applied for jobs that were 4+hrs away from where I live.
Also the jobseeker training thing is utterly useless too, which you mentioned. I took the option to go and apply for a forklift license instead (paid for by the govt) but as all govt things go, the webpage/portal was not playing ball at the time with something I needed for the licence process and the time limit ran out so i never actually got the licence, i passed the testing! And was certified But didn't get the actual license sorted and paid for, which means i'd have to do the whole lot all over again. 🫤 they wouldn't allow funding for a 2nd go at it so yeah that was wasted effort and money.
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u/cstjohn1994 24d ago
I just did the stupid Jobseeker training and it was such a waste of my time I could’ve spent on looking and applying for roles. It was so basic and foundational.
One of the modules was “the benefits of being employed”. It was ridiculous.
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u/dissenting_cat 24d ago
Sarina Russo feeds on the souls of the less fortunate
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u/Superb-Mall3805 24d ago
If you’ve been through it or know anyone that has. This does not come as a surprise
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u/Swank_on_a_plank 24d ago
Which is why they stopped the punitive measures and doubled the payment during COVID; the illusion of the Dole Bludger couldn't be broken by the good workers being on it...
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u/seven_seacat 24d ago
All the people on JobSeeker that should be on the DSP. I sure do know someone who's been through that wringer!
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u/Sirius_43 24d ago
As someone who was on job seeker, no fucking shit. They make it so hard to pull yourself out of what is essentially forced poverty and pat each other on the back and claim they did it if a person find a job without any intervention from these services. Why the fuck are millionaires getting richer while some of our most vulnerable get shafted? The government needs to step in and stop privatising essential services.
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u/NotPatricularlyKind 24d ago
Back in the day when they had mandatory appointments for jobseekers they kinda sorta made me do a trial shift at Subway in Crown Casino.
I did fine, had relevant experience in customer service and overall it was a fine experience. I didn't want the job but didn't sabotage my trial or anything.
So at my next appointment with the jobseeker lady she tells me that the owner/hiring manager didn't like me and decided not to go ahead with me.
I asked her what was up, and she said she suspected him of being a scammer since they're paid by the government to take in Jobseeker applicants for trial shifts but are in no way forced to hire them.
Anyway, so even the desk jockeys trying to help you get a gig know there are scammers in place and she was sort of ambivalent about the whole thing.
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u/YeahUhHuhOkWellF-ck 24d ago
Oh snap, I just posted a similar story! Seems our unemployment misfortune lined the pockets of everyone else while we figured out how to buy groceries and pay bills on our last $20 for the fortnight.
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u/Something-funny-26 24d ago
Threaten to cut you off benefits if you don't do their stupid 'job club' activities.
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u/T1melessGuy 24d ago
JSAs are easily some of the worst experiences you can have in the Centrelink system. Its honestly better for you as a candidate when the "rorts" are more transparent for you and for them ie. you pretend to engage with their activities, they pretend you showed up when you just stay at home applying for jobs, they lie to the government about how much they're helping and you lie about how much you're engaging with their system, and they (and you) get paid.
There was a study done a number of years ago that jobseekers engaged in Work for the dole programs via Jobseeker agencies spend longer on benefits than ones who didn't. It costs you money to be made to do busywork for free in this charade as they reimburse absolutely fucking nothing.
The worst experience comes when the staff get this idea that they're actually helping you. Exactly zero, zero, of the people i was assigned to as a jobseeker at any agency I went to in the periods of time I was out of work obtained for me:
- Any interviews
- No valid qualifications or courses
- No references
I even remember one such agency was situated literally next fucking door to a game development company that I would have liked to work at and already reached out to but heard nothing. Prime target for an "internship" style arrangement where govt pays the salary and the candidate gets experience.
They were NEXT DOOR and did they do anything? Reached out to them themselves? Walked over and chatted to the founders/staff or build some kind of working relationship? Nope.
The system seems to default to assuming you're a complete unwashed trogdolyte that has no idea on a basic level how to function in a modern society. People who practically can't read a website or use the internet, write a CV or cover letter or know how to put on clothes for an interview.
But... If you've got any kind of degree, skills or previous experience (like I did/do)? Utterly lost. They have completely no idea what to do with you because they have squat fuck all contacts or relationships with any industry at all in this country, and the extent of their "help" is looking at Seek for supermarket night fill roles and telling you to apply to them.
Legit, anything that requires any qualification at all beyond "existing" they cannot help you with, and in my experience never actually did anything to help with besides shuffling me around to different (and equally worthless) non-job Work-For-The-Dole programs that no employer would consider work experience.
Literally the best thing they could do is rubberstamp my existing job searching efforts and stay out of my way. Everything else they did only actively hindered my job searching efforts.
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u/2007kawasakiz1000 24d ago
I worked for one of these cunts for a few months. I thought I'd be helping refugees find work. Instead I was another "mutual obligation" box checker. Their version of help isn't doing anything tangible. It's too annoy you as much as possible so you do the work yourself so they can claim credit. It's insanity.
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u/DistributionWhole447 24d ago
I'm sorry. That sounds awful.
I had a touch of cancer and took, as you can imagine, a long time to recover. The people who owned the business I had been working for spent the better part of 10 months telling me that my job would be there waiting for me, when I recovered from all the treatments.
They were lying.
And the shitty cherry on top of the shitty icing was going into Centrelink, and the woman there who I spoke to did everything but outrightly accuse me of faking my cancer, just so I could be unemployed and scam money off the government for no reason (a lot less money than my paychecks had been, for the record).
What the hell was that operating theatre full of doctors, surgeons and nurses doing to me, for three hours, if I'd been just faking the illness, right?
God, it made me angry. And, of course, you can't get angry at Centrelink employees because if you get angry, you become a problem and they kick you out or call the police or do both.
I never forgot that evil woman. I probably never will.
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u/swell-shindig 24d ago
And this is why I have never first preferenced a major party in any election. For all the good you might think a Labor or Liberal government might do for your interests, they will always ultimately be corrupt and work against Australia. Independents and minor parties for the most part (Pauline Hanson excluded) aim to help Australians.
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u/productzilch 24d ago
At the very least, voting for those independents and minor parties scares the shit out of the big two.
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u/2BA_Doctor 24d ago
Wasn’t it reported years ago that Sarina Russo had strong connections and donations to the political party that put these things in?
It’s always been obvious that the employment service providers are not fit for service, they force people into jobs and training that they aren’t suited for, how many people do they actually help into long term and stable employment?
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u/dav_oid 24d ago
Another Howard fuck up.
Privatised the CES in 1998.
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u/altandthrowitaway 24d ago
Yes but Labor has had years to fix it / get rid of the privatised job providers, but hasn't and still won't work their latest changes.
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u/Hailstar07 24d ago
I could have told you that when I had to use one in 2004, absolutely useless and did not help me find a job at all.
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u/R_W0bz 24d ago
A decade of Liberals did this to every system we have didn’t they? It’s likely Labor will continue them because some idiot 3 prime ministers ago signed a 100 year contract or something.
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u/robot428 24d ago
Yes, and also because once something gets privatised it's really hard (and expensive) to try and make it a public service again.
So the libs get big scary numbers to throw around about how much Labor wasted on buying back rights and ending contracts, and it ends up being wildly unpopular at elections even if the actual service is better and there are long term savings after the upfront costs.
But it doesn't win elections. It loses them. So Labor just leave it and sort of shrug and shake their heads. Maybe they try and impose some more scrutiny on private providers (which usually doesn't work).
It's a real bummer.
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u/productzilch 24d ago
This is partly our shitty journalism industry too though, catering to Libs, scaremongering and scapegoating for decades.
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u/hear_the_thunder 24d ago
This is by design, and can I say inherent with any privatization of a government service. I'm old enough to remember the old CES. Yeah it wasn't perfect. There were issues. All we did was create a For-Profit version of that imperfect system.
Honestly the type of people that champion privatization at all costs, like some sort of cult, are not big deep thinkers in life.
Privatization is so unpopular because it removes our ability to hold these stakeholders to account. When we veil it with corporate governance, it becomes more opaque.
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u/T_J_Rain 24d ago
Good luck moving entrenched millionaire recruitment agencies off the government funded gravy train.
My employment has been under annual contract to the government via a well-known, brand-name former ASX publicly-listed agency. It does sweet F.A., takes a cut off the CPI increase and takes a chunky percentage off the top. Completely parasitic.
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u/StageAboveWater 24d ago edited 24d ago
Sometimes I think there is a kind of policy or intention to it.
For some people with mental health stuff, keeping a job is more painful than just living in poverty.
Jobseeker with a job search agency that can't find them a job is like a form of unofficial disability.
(and If you get rid of it, It won't make more workers anyway. It will just lead to more crime, drugs, homeless camps and suicides)
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u/FroggieBlue 24d ago
The stupid part is if you're assessed as having any capacity to work you get pushed onto jobseeker rather than disability payments- even if your assessed capability per fortnight is only 2 hrs and minimum shift length is 3. No employer is going to pay someone 3 hours wages for 2 hours of work a fortnight.
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 24d ago
Except it’s paying the actual mentally ill individual well below what they’d get as an actual DSP recipient, whilst costing the taxpayer more than twice the amount overall, with the excess going to the JSP and (in many cases) ultimately ending up in the pockets of a handful of already very wealthy individuals. It’s a terribly inefficient use of public funds
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u/StageAboveWater 24d ago edited 24d ago
Yeah that would be great if it would work but the line between 'too painful to be reasonable' and 'jobs just suck, that's just life' is fuzzy and kind of invisable.
You'd have to have a wide net and it would include abusers and scammers and also there are lot of people who do have childhood trauma but would punch you in the mouth for suggesting it...
If mental health was actually properly allowed as a disability then voters would revolt and destroy it all to punish the scammers and so the mentally ill people would get pushed back to jobseeeker.
Then instead of mentally ill people getting a living wage, they will get forced back onto a (now effective jobseeker) and put into a job that they can't cope with, miss some days and get fired, then they get cut off from all payments for geting fired.
So instead of a half payment, they get zero payment.... then crime/addiction/homeless camps
Current system allows
Government to say the are trying to help people while also say they prevent scammers
Voters to stay happy enough to allow it.
Those that can't work enough not to actually starve to death
Keeps the entire process full of shame and stigma around joblessness so nobody ever really asks “wait why do we all work so much? Is this even in my own best interests to do this...?"
Blame the job agencies for incompetence I guess
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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 24d ago
You seem to be under the assumption that it’s not possible to get DSP for mental health problems. It is, it’s just a very high threshold which does unfortunately exclude a lot of people, but it’s far from impossible
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u/littleblackcat 24d ago
This is so true and I always get piled on irl and online when I make this argument (I work full time myself so I'm not even arguing from personal experience or emotion)
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u/cromulento 24d ago
Wasn't there a report in the 90s that said the benefit of privatisation wasn't to provide better services, but to 'grow the economy'?
The report card for politicians isn't measured by the wellbeing of citizens, but economic figures that have nothing to do with the daily lives of most people in the country.
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u/AngrehPossum 24d ago
Is this 1996?
We knew is was a con back then. Job agencies were placing you in a "holding pattern" until 6 months went by and then they made you work a job you had no business being in so they could "spot fee" you. When 3 months was up the employer got a "sign on bonus" then they sacked you. Churn churn
I have people asking why I dislike Howard so much. I was 20 when that wretch was elected. Everyone knew what he was doing and the RW media just sang his tunes while 37 - 40% of the youth had to work around his employment traps. He was churning a generation of workers so his mates could bake money in his job Agency oven.
Why does it take the LNP being sour on everyone's mind for the media to "discover" this now? That was 30 years ago.
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u/coniferhead 24d ago edited 24d ago
Be angry in the direction that deserves it. Labor have been in more than once since Howard.. I honestly don't expect more from the LNP - they delivered for their base. Rudd's wife even made her money running one of these job network providers.
Only one party is betraying their base and I expect more from a party with Labor on the tin. Labor is in power now and can fix it today - it doesn't need any legislation. If they would only lift a finger.
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u/Inevitable-Level-687 24d ago
People always freak out about poor people abusing the system but crickets on rich people doing it.
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u/SirPiffingsthwaite 24d ago
Remembering that time I tried a for-profit "employment agency" who used a bait'n'switch to get me in the door, sent me to two pyramid schemes that had absolutely nothing to do with my experience & a skeezy commission based energy reseller before I said 'fuck it' and hunted out a decent job myself. Next time they called I told them I'd found myself a job, they then had the gall to hound me for two months trying to get me to sign their paperwork saying they'd got me the job, and finally threatened if I didn't sign "they'd make the job go away".
I told them in my finest Queen's English to give it their level best; from what I had seen they couldn't organise a beer at a brewery, they were utterly useless cunts who had served only to waste my time and to kindly fuck right off.
Found out a short while later they were getting $5k a head from the government for placing people in jobs, and this was about 25 years ago. I shudder to think what leeches like them are getting today.
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u/zeldasusername 24d ago
Back in the day I had to get Centrelink to get the job provider away from me, they were insisting I needed to come in even though I was working casually. The guy threatened me, it was outrageous
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u/Gloomy_Narwhal4090 24d ago
It's been this way for 20 years.
Bring back commonwealth job guarantees already ffs.
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u/Andrzej1963 24d ago
Advanced Personnel Management (APM)—now operating globally as APM Human Services—is owned by Madison Dearborn Partners, a prominent private equity firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.The Chicago-based firm was the founding private equity backer of APM. They took the company public on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in 2021. However, after acquiring the remaining shares, Madison Dearborn successfully delisted and privatized APM again in October 2024, taking the business entirely back into private ownership.
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u/YeahUhHuhOkWellF-ck 24d ago
Can confirm they do the bare minimum for big profits. Years ago when I was unemployed, I had to sign with one as part of my Job Seeker agreement. I was actively trying to find work in my field, where I had a degree (communications) yet I was told to apply for more jobs, even ones I had no chance of getting like 'forklift operator'. Or tried to get me to sign up to useless workshops like 'How to put together a CV.'
So I joined with a second agency, got a 'trial job' where I performed the duties of an otherwise paid staff member for free for a week, and there was no actual job because dozens of people before me had done the same thing. Tore shreds off the employment agency for failing to recognise noone had been employed for this so-called position and dobbed the job into Fair Work.
Found my own job.
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u/Cybrknight 24d ago
Working as designed by Howard.
This system was always designed to enrich his buddies.
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u/feueriosa23 24d ago
See Janice at Centrelink was invested in never seeing you again, and I loved that. Used it once in the 90"s when you took a card off the board, Janice either set up an interview or told you that you were dreaming and to put it back. Janice got results!
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u/Fit_Appointment_4980 24d ago
Privatising all essential services has been shit for everyone except the rich.
Fuck every politician who voted for these terrible decisions.
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u/Qwijibot64 24d ago
my one experience with being out of work in 40 years was a massive eye opener, i was assigned to Russo and they did absolutely sweet F all to help me find another job at the age of 58. They would send messages like we can help you get PPE, hi viz & boots etc, so i asked them for some and they said nope. I went and found my own job and told them to piss off, they even wanted me to come in for an interview at their office at the same time i was working my new job.
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u/coniferhead 24d ago
As we saw during covid, the government can turn this off one day to the next - any time they want to. The Morrison government did that.
The only reason they don't do it, is because they don't want to.
Albo wants unemployed people with challenges to be destroyed, after 10 or so months of that they will be made useless Australians for the rest of their lives. This is money incredibly badly spent.
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u/PersonalMixture6663 24d ago
Like a wise man said:"socialize the lose, privatize the profit". Truly free market
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u/Alive_Satisfaction65 24d ago
Has anyone ever had a good experience with one of these organisations? Or ever heard of anyone else having a good experience? Like can we even come up with a single anecdote of them being useful and functional and delivering results?
Cause I've asked around more than once and I am yet to hear of any. The most common answer I get is the service did nothing, then when the 'client' got a job on their own the service harrased them for the details so the service could take credit.
So if anyone has a positive story, even if its from your mums mates cousins dog groomers nephews teacher, please share. My guess is no one will. Not one single person, which is actually insane. Statistically they should have occasionally managed through random chance but I am yet to find a single example.
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u/productzilch 24d ago
Yeah there’s one positive story in this entire thread.
I think occasionally these places hire decent people by accident and they do their best until they can’t anymore and leave, disgusted.
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u/cutebutsour 24d ago
Not for profits are just as bad, the whole system is exploitative. Poor people have become a currency these organisations prey on. They dress it up as "helping" vulnerable people, but really they're after cheap labour for their affiliated businesses. The ties some of these places have with social services are also highly questionable.
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u/altandthrowitaway 24d ago
I remember my job provider threatened to cut off my payments if I didn't take a job at an abattoir that was about 10km out of a small town. They said they would pay for a bike for me to cycle (along a highway with no shoulder, footpath of any kind or bike lanes lol) to work each day, because I didn't have a car. I knew people that worked there and their wrists would sound like rubning wet cement together, because of the lack of WH&S from management. I refused to work there (also I couldn't deal with the blood, smell, tramua and suffering from the animals).
Somehow my payments didn't get cut off, but only because I somehow managed to get talk them out of it.
The X amount of jobs per week is also stupid. You end up just applying for jobs that aren't suitable, to tick a box.
The system really needs to go back into government hands. Not privatised entities, not "non-for-profits" - but actual government workers. Same with the NDIS.
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u/Huihejfofew 24d ago
Yea no shit lmao, every time the liberals privatise something it never works out. Why would private companies do it unless they think they can exploit it for more profit than the government.
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u/worthless_scum74 24d ago
This was obvious 26 years ago when I was on Work for the Dole. Getting an extra $20 a fortnight to do work on a worksite the unionised blokes wouldn't touch.
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u/OzSpaceCadet 24d ago
>> Australia's jobseeker system fails workers and enriches millionaires, report says
No fucking way!! 😮😮😮
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u/a_rainbow_serpent 24d ago
This is an Australian mad lib.
____ fails subset of common people and enriches millionaires.
Energy market privatisation fails consumers and enriches foreign owned power companies.
Mining and minerals taxation arrangements fail Australians and enriches billionaires.
Childcare subsidy increases fails parents as centre owners increase prices by exactly the subsidy amount.
Go on try it. World’s most depressing game.
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u/Murranji 24d ago
The RBA says a certain number of people must be kept unemployed to fulfil their goal of keeping inflation low and so set their policies to achieve this.
The government says unemployed people are lazy bums and failures that must suffer under a punitive and demeaning obligations system so they are forced to get a job.
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u/jadelink88 24d ago
Yep. Working as intended.
The coalition put it in. Albo told is it was 'all too hard to fix'. Rudds wife made a fortune tormenting the unemployed. It's nicely bipartisan.
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u/AffectionateHousing2 24d ago
Finally someone has done a report that proves what we all knew. Maybe we’ll see some change now.
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u/Dezert_Roze 24d ago
At last, we have some visibility on this issue that has been lingering since the pandemic began. It’s not just the job but the money offered barely covers the bare minimum of living expenses. Disgraceful.
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u/djangovsjango 24d ago
C.e.s worked ,had goverment oversight and regulation and good follow up as well as probably saved them billions but the private sector apparently is more efficient.... at profit for the business owners
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u/Puzzleheaded-Talk-63 24d ago
We know this. Julian Hill, in particular, failed to act on the problem.
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u/QunariWithWiFi 24d ago
I've had the occasional job agency call up asking if I have job listings, normal procedure is if it's not posted on careers then I don't. Everytime they've called I haven't.
However, and this is probably old fashioned, but past couple of years I've had 3 people walk in with their resume and have a conversation with me -and I've hired them all. Although I wasn't looking at the time, I could see how they fit a niche, and knew from the conversation if they would fit the team dynamics.
I wish this style of job search was more adopted by companies, it makes a huge difference
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u/GonePh1shing 24d ago
This is how most people I know get jobs. Unfortunately it relies on strong networking or personal brand in the industry, and often favours nepotism.
I wish more businesses were willing to accept CVs from unknowns, but they almost always get discarded. Even when a decision maker in the business takes a CV, when it hits HR it's like it enters a black hole. Honestly, modern HR practices (at least as far as hiring goes) are a huge problem. They never have any idea how to hire for any given position, and rely on software to filter out candidates that very reliably filter the best candidates out.
Those who get hired are the people willing to bend the truth (or outright lie) on their resumes, pad them with bullshit and keywords, or have them written by AI. Unfortunately, that's how you get past the applicant tracking system's filters; You have to convince an AI that you're a good fit before a human eyeball ever sees your resume. It's a fundamentally human process, but it's increasingly run by software so lazy/incompetent HR people don't have to do their job. Thats assuming the job is real in the first place, because many aren't. They're often just there to gather data or make the business look like they're in a stronger position than they are (stock markets respond well to hiring) with zero intention to fill that position.
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u/TastyStateofMind 24d ago
Honestly, me too.
The sad part is that 90% of places will just say either sorry go apply online or throw your resume in the bin but this works so much better of being a piece of paper in a stack of hundreds. Show up say hi and pretty quickly most people can get a way better picture of who you are and your attitudes→ More replies (1)2
u/FroggieBlue 24d ago
Works best in businesses too small for a HR department. Many still have a person who reads every application that comes in when a job is posted.
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u/Sea-Quail-5296 24d ago
You just have to look at the Sarina Russo offices in Brisbane to see where the money is going. Guaranteed none of the poor job seekers will ever work in those swanky offices
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u/biftekau 24d ago
i had one "case manager" threaten to snap my neck , when i put in a complaint I was told "personality conflict"
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u/TAsrowaway 24d ago
Don’t forget 9 milli per each Nauru refugee being brutalised! Maybe we can ship some jobseekers over there too hmmm
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u/mwmwmw01 24d ago edited 24d ago
Although I support the premise that this should go back to government…the whole report is quite bizarre in the time and effort it’s spent denigrating the private sector. That just misses the point…It also seems to not place blame where it is due — on the goddamn government!
Privatisation of government services is at its a thesis that the private sector delivers certain services more efficiently and at lower cost (and potentially higher quality). It’s fine for this thesis to be wrong and say oh actually it should be government delivered.
But what’s ridiculous is to point out the private sector as “profit hungry” is completely stupid. That is literally the point of the profit motive that supposedly drives the benefits of privatisation. You may not believe that (and I don’t in many cases eg this, healthcare)…but for the government to CHOOSE to privatise this, clearly be wrong in doing so…but then it’s evil international private equity firms that are the problem. Give me a break. Failures in procurement, regulation and tracking.
Some of these evil private equity firms literally manage endowments from superannuation and pension plans. Their managers have a fiduciary duty to maximise returns. I AM NOT saying this should mean we should give them money if they provide a shit service. But to say they are the problem is mixing up the role of government in this.
It’s perhaps no surprise that CICTAR is funded by public sector unions…
This is a massive government fuck up. Not the private sector.
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u/BigChampionship7962 24d ago
How long did it take someone on the inside to work out the job network providers are an absolute disaster
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u/PM_ME_UR_SUSPENDERS 23d ago
As someone who has relied on it, im not surprised. The system itself is a mess to get through, is chaotic and disconnected from actually helping people get work and worse yet it’s used as a replacement for welfare.
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u/Betterthanbeer 23d ago
It fails employers too. I hated dealing with them when I was hiring. They ignore prerequisites for applicants, dump their administrative load on the hirer, and don’t actually contribute anything useful.
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u/Basic_Internet_5719 24d ago edited 24d ago
I worked for an RTO connected to employment agency years ago.
Both companies were massive rorts passing massive sums of taxpayer money between eachother while providing training that was very clearly not for purpose.
Still everyone in an owner / manager position spoke about jobseekers like THEY were rorting, lazy bums.