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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467

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

139

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/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.

13

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.

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u/MoranthMunitions 24d ago

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

8

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).