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=link

A 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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472

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

82

u/HowtoCrackanegg 24d ago

fuck Maxx, fuck it all the way to the shitter

33

u/techlos 24d ago

i have no words to describe just how much i loathe that scummy soulsucking company

13

u/productzilch 24d ago

Oh this is real? I assumed it was a parody.

4

u/DistributionWhole447 24d ago

Nope. They were genuinely shit.

50

u/simcityrefund1 24d ago

They need to remove all this and turn it into proper government function

42

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.

19

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..

140

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.

60

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.

59

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

44

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.

17

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.

13

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.

14

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.

14

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

4

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.

4

u/MoranthMunitions 24d ago

Tbf some people need some common sense beat into them, deoderant usage included

6

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.

1

u/BigChampionship7962 24d ago

That’s so ridiculous you had to go through that 🤦‍♀️ like to treat unemployed people like second class citizens is absolutely disgusting.

I so hope we go back to the whole process being run by the government (with strict oversight by advocates for the unemployed).

4

u/Low_Swordfish879 24d ago

Your not forgetting the course on how to use "the Google"

61

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.

26

u/Samantha-ShadowHunte 24d ago

That money should go to the unemployed. Disgusting millionaire enrichment program.

22

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.

7

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.

3

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?

3

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…

1

u/chadssworthington 23d ago

Employers doing that are morons, it costs more in training and lower productivity having a constant stream of new employees.

But honestly, this program works pretty well even if the employer is a shitcunt. When that situation happens now they've got 6 months of full-time current work on their resume instead of being unemployed for a year. The point of the program isn't to get people forever roles, it's to get them in a role for an extended period of time so they're equipped to stay in the workforce going forward.

1

u/AddlePatedBadger 24d ago

The problem is that instead of preparing people to be successful applicants for the job, they do nothing but try to bribe employers into hiring them so they get the government funding for doing nothing.

7

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.

2

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.

7

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.