Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unemployment. Show all posts

Friday 24 February 2017

Will cuts to Sunday penalty rates become a textbook example of unintended consequences?


ABC News, 23 February 2017:

Let's start by calling a spade a spade. Sunday penalty rates have been cut by the Fair Work Commission. Not "equalised" or "brought in line" with Saturday rates. Cut.

Business, big and small, has been seeking this cut for years, saying Sunday penalties are a legacy of a bygone era where families went to church — one that's costing them a tidy sum.

They also argue it's a legacy that's been costing jobs, with many employers choosing not to open on Sundays, or to maintain just a skeleton staff (although ask yourself, just how many retailers, restaurants, cafes and bars are actually shut on Sunday?).

But the cuts to Sunday penalty rates could become a textbook example of unintended consequences, where a move supposed to increase employment instead hurts the economy and increases business failures and job losses.

Why? Because the hundreds of thousands of retail and hospitality workers affected by this decision are also customers.

What do you think happens when you cut someone's pay packet by as much as 25 per cent for their Sunday shifts?

(For a typical permanent retail worker on the award who always works Sunday shifts this will cut their annual pay by about $3,500).

They either have to work more, or they have to cut their spending to match their new, lower wage.

Given that unemployment is stubbornly high at 5.7 per cent, and underemployment is near record levels, it seems unlikely they'll actually be able to get more work to make up the lost pay — and, remember, these staff already work Sundays, so it's not like they'll benefit from any increase in jobs on that day.

According to the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS) an est. 850,300 people were employed in the accommodation and food industry sector in November 2016 as their main job and another est. 1.25 million people have their main job in the retail sector [ABS 6291.0.55.003 - Labour Force, Australia, Detailed, Quarterly, Nov 2016].

An est. 54.7 percent of female employees in the accommodation/food industry work part-time and an est. 45.3 per cent males do likewise. While in retail an est. 54.6 per cent of females and 45.3 per cent of males work part-time.

In accommodation/food businesses part time employees work for an average of 16.1 hours while in the retail trade part-time employees work for an average of 16.7 hours.

Underemployment appears to be highest in the food and hospitality sector, third highest in the retail sector and females highest in both sectors. [Workplace Gender Equality Agency, Gender composition of the workforce: by industry, April 2016]

Females with only one job were more likely to work on weekends - 73% compared to 68% for males.

These statistics tend to confirm that “hundreds of thousands” of single person and family households will be hit by cuts to Sunday penalty rates as set out in the Fair Work Commission’s 4 yearly review of modern awards – Penalty Rates Decision covering Hospitality, Fast Food, Retail and Pharmacy Awards and, I have no doubt that their loss of income will affect local economies to a significant degree.


Award Sunday Penalty Rate

Hospitality Award full-time and part-time employees: (no change for casuals) 175 per cent -> 150 per cent

Fast Food Award (Level 1 employees only)
Full-time and part-time employees: 150 per cent ->125 per cent
Casual employees: 175 per cent ->150 per cent

Retail Award Full-time and part-time employees: 200 per cent ->150 per cent
Casual employees: 200 per cent ->175 per cent

Pharmacy Award
(7.00 am – 9.00 pm only)
Full-time and part-time employees: 200 per cent ->150 per cent
Casual employees: 200 per cent ->175 per cent

Local and regional economies on the NSW North Coast - where often low levels of employment opportunity combined with the fact that few hospitality/food outlets in tourism-orientated towns and none of the big retail stores currently close on a Sunday anyway - suggest that this wages cut will be nothing more than a straight forward cost saving for local businesses, with no or very little additional full-time, part-time or casual employment eventuating.

That a backlash to the Fair Work Commission decision appears inevitable is indicated by this online poll active on the day the decision was published:



Wednesday 22 February 2017

What were they thinking?



The  Sydney Morning Herald, 15 February 2017:

What were they thinking? On Monday three members of cabinet called a press conference to pressure the Senate to cut the dole. That's right, to cut the dole. At just $13,750 per year plus an $8.80 per fortnight energy allowance, it's already so low the Business Council believes it "presents a barrier to employment and risks entrenching poverty." The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the research arm of the world's richest economies, says Australia's unemployment benefit has reached the point where it may no longer be effective in "enabling someone to look for a suitable job".

Even a Coalition-dominated inquiry found a "compelling case" for boosting it.

But the three ministers wanted to deny the energy supplement to new entrants on the spurious ground that this would merely remove "carbon tax compensation for a carbon tax that no longer exists". It wouldn't. The Newstart cost of living increase was cut 0.7 per cent when the energy supplement came in to avoid double counting. If the energy supplement went but the cut remained, new entrants to Newstart would be worse off than if the whole thing had never happened.

And they wanted to withhold Newstart from newly-unemployed Australians aged 22 to 25, paying them instead the lower $11,375 Youth Allowance. The under 25s would have to wait longer too – five weeks instead of the present one.

Rather than spend time arguing the merits of cutting a benefit already so low it can barely be lived on, Treasurer Scott Morrison, Social Services Minister Christian Porter and Education Minister Simon Birmingham delivered instead what amounted to a threat: if the Senate didn't cut the unemployment benefit, they might not fully fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

But not at first. In a burlesque twist, they opened the press conference spruiking the case for an unfunded massive company tax cut.

* Images found at Google Images

Friday 10 February 2017

Not content with last year's omnibus bill, Turnbull unleashed his inner b@stard on the poor again in 2017


Pick a paragraph, almost any paragraph - if you are from a working class family someone you care about is likely to find themselves affected.

The First Omnibus Bill……

Turnbull Government, Budget Savings (Omnibus) Bill 2016 as passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate on 15 September 2016, assented to 16 September 2016:

Summary
Amends:
the Higher Education Support Act 2003 to establish a minimum repayment threshold for HELP debts of two per cent when a person’s income reaches $51 957 from the 2018-19 financial year; and replace the Higher Education Grants Index with the consumer price index for the purposes of indexing all grants and regulated student contribution amounts; the Higher Education Support Act 2003 and Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to discontinue the HECS-HELP benefit from 1 July 2017;
the Social Security Act 1991Social Security (Administration) Act 1999Farm Household Support Act 2014 and Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to discontinue the job commitment bonus;
the Australian Renewable Energy Agency Act 2011 to reduce the agency’s available appropriation;
the Private Health Insurance Act 2007 to pause the income thresholds for the Medicare levy surcharge and the government rebate on private health insurance for a further three years from 1 July 2018;
the National Health Reform Act 2011 to abolish the National Health Performance Authority; the Aged Care Act 1997 to: increase the secretary’s compliance powers in relation to reviews of care recipient appraisals submitted by aged care providers to receive Commonwealth subsidies;
abolish adviser and administrator panel arrangements; and require approved providers to notify the secretary of certain changes to any key personnel in certain circumstances;
the Age Discrimination Act 2004Dental Benefits Act 2008 and Human Services (Medicare) Act 1973 to close the Child Dental Benefits Schedule from 31 December 2016 and establish the Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme from 1 January 2017;
the Social Security Act 1991Social Security Legislation Amendment (Newly Arrived Resident’s Waiting Periods and Other Measures) Act 1997 and Farm Household Support Act 2014 to remove the exemption from the 104 week newly arrived resident’s waiting period for new migrants who are family members of Australian citizens or long-term permanent residents;
the Social Security Act 1991Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 and Student Assistance Act 1973 to cease the student start-up scholarship payment from 1 July 2017;
five Acts to apply an interest charge to outstanding debts owed by former recipients of social welfare payments who have failed to enter into, or have not complied with, an acceptable repayment arrangement;
five Acts to enable the making of departure prohibition orders to prevent certain social welfare debtors from leaving the country;
the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) (Administration) Act 1999Paid Parental Leave Act 2010Social Security Act 1991 and Student Assistance Act 1973 to remove the six-year limit on welfare debt recovery; the Social Security Act 1991 and Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 to provide that parental leave payments and dad and partner pay payments are included in the income test for income support payments;
the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999Income Tax Assessment Act 1936 and Social Security Act 1991 to change the way fringe benefits are treated under the income tests for family assistance and youth income support payments and for related purposes; the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 to align carer allowance and carer payment start day provisions;
the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 and Paid Parental Leave Act 2010 to pause indexation for family tax benefit (FTB) Part A, the primary earner income limit for FTB Part B and the Paid Parental Leave income limit for a further three years from 1 July 2017;
the Social Security Act 1991 and Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 to remove the pension income and assets test exemptions currently available to pensioners in aged care who rent out their former home and pay their aged care accommodation costs by periodic payments;
the A New Tax System (Family Assistance) Act 1999 and Social Security Act 1991 to remove the exemption from the income test for FTB Part A recipients and the exemption from the parental income test for certain dependent young people receiving youth allowance and ABSTUDY living allowance;
the Social Security Act 1991 to provide that certain persons cannot be paid social security payments when they are in psychiatric confinement because they have been charged with a serious offence;
six Acts to prevent new recipients of welfare payments or concession cards from being paid the energy supplement from 20 March 2017;
the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to reduce the refundable and non-refundable rates of the tax offset available under the research and development tax incentive for the first $100 million of eligible expenditure;
six Acts to require larger entities to provide payroll and superannuation information at the time it is created through the single touch payroll reporting framework; and
the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 to create a single appeal path for the review of original determinations made by the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission.

The Second Omnibus Bill……

Turnbull Government, Social Services Legislation Amendment (Omnibus Savings and Child Care Reform) Bill 2017, presented in the House of Representatives, 8 February 2017:

A Bill for an Act to amend the law relating to family assistance, social security, paid parental leave, veterans’ entitlements, military rehabilitation and compensation and farm household support, and for related purposes


This bill contains the following Schedules:
1. Payment rates
The family tax benefit Part A standard fortnightly rate will be increased by $20.02 for each FTB child in the family aged up to 19. An equivalent rate increase, of around $19.37 per fortnight, will apply to youth allowance and disability support pension recipients aged under 18 and living at home. These increases will apply from 1 July 2018.
2. Family tax benefits Part B rate
From 1 July 2017, the Bill will introduce a reform to family tax benefit Part B that removes entitlement to FTB Part B for single parent families who are not single parents aged 60 or more or grandparents or great-grandparents, from 1 January of the calendar year their youngest child turns 17.
3. Family tax benefit supplements
This Schedule will phase out the family tax benefit Part A supplement for families with an adjusted taxable income of $80,000 a year or less by reducing it to $602.25 a year from 1 July 2016, and to $302.95 a year from 1 July 2017. It will then be withdrawn from 1 July 2018. The family tax benefit Part A supplement has already been withdrawn for families with an adjusted taxable income over $80,000 a year under the Budget Savings (Omnibus) Act 2016. The family tax benefit Part B supplement will also be phased out. It will be reduced to $302.95 a year from 1 July 2016, and to $153.30 a year from 1 July 2017. It will then be withdrawn from 1 July 2018.
4. Jobs for Families Child Care Package
The purpose of Schedule 4 is to introduce key aspects of the Jobs for Families Child Care Package, as announced in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 Budget. The Schedule will, through the introduction of a new Child Care Subsidy and other enhancements, deliver a simpler, more affordable, more flexible and more accessible child care system for families.
5. Proportional payments of pensions outside Australia
This Schedule reduces from 26 weeks to six weeks the period during which age pension, and a small number of other payments with unlimited portability, can be paid outside Australia at the basic means-tested rate. 4 After six weeks, payment will be adjusted according to the length of the pensioner’s Australian working life residence.
6. Pensioner education supplement
This Schedule ceases pensioner education supplement from the first 1 January or 1 July after the day the Act receives Royal Assent.
7. Education entry payment
This measure ceases the education entry payment from the first 1 January or 1 July after the Act receives Royal Assent.
8. Indexation
This Schedule implements the following changes to Australian Government payments:
· maintain at level for three years from 1 July of the first financial year beginning on or after the day this Act receives Royal Assent the income free areas for all working age allowances (other than student payments) and for parenting payment single; and
· maintain at level for three years from 1 January of the first calendar year beginning on or after the day this Act receives Royal Assent the income free areas and other means test thresholds for student payments, including the student income bank limits.
9. Close the energy supplement to new welfare recipients
This Schedule ceases, from 20 September 2017, payment of the energy supplement to recipients who were not receiving a welfare payment on 19 September 2016 and closes the energy supplement to new welfare recipients from 20 September 2017.
10.Stopping the payment of pension supplement after six weeks overseas
This Schedule will stop the payment of pension supplement after six weeks temporary absence overseas and immediately for permanent departures.
11.Automation of income stream review processes
This Schedule will allow for the automation of the regular income stream review process by enabling the Secretary to require income stream providers to transfer a dataset to the Department of Human Services (DHS) on a regular basis. 5
12.Seasonal horticultural work income exemption
Schedule 12 to the Bill provides a social security income test incentive aimed at increasing the number of job seekers who undertake specified seasonal horticultural work, such as fruit picking.
13.Ordinary waiting periods
This Schedule makes amendments to extend and simplify the ordinary waiting period for working age payments.
14.Age requirements for various Commonwealth payments
This Schedule provides that young unemployed people aged 22 to 24 would no longer be eligible for newstart allowance or sickness allowance until they turn 25 years of age and would, instead, be able to claim and qualify for youth allowance. To enable this, youth allowance for all types of people who can satisfy the activity test, will be available to people who have not yet reached 25.
15.Income support waiting periods
This Schedule introduces a four-week waiting period, for job ready young people who are looking for work, to receive income support payments. During this fourweek period, job seekers under 25 years of age who have been classified as job ready (Stream A) by the Job Seeker Classification Instrument will also be required to complete assigned activities, through a new program, RapidConnect Plus, that will help them prepare for and find work.
16.Other waiting period amendments (Rapid Activation of young job seekers)
This Schedule implements the Rapid Activation of young job seekers 2015-16 Budget measure.
17.Adjustments for Primary Carer Pay
This and the following Schedule introduce the revised arrangements for the Paid Parental Leave scheme announced in the 2015-16 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook and previously introduced in the Fairer Paid Parental Leave Bill 2016, which will now be withdrawn. The measure is changed in that the maximum PPL period for which a person may be paid parental leave pay is increased from the current 18 weeks to 20 weeks. The measure will commence on the first 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October that is 9 months after the date the Act receives royal assent, with an earliest commencement date of 1 January 2018.
18.Employer Opt-In (PPL) Schedule
18 removes the employer paymaster role in administering the Paid Parental Leave scheme.

Australian Financial Review graphic, 9 February 2017:


A Plea to see reason……

Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS), media release, 8 February 2017:

ACOSS urges Parliament to reject latest attempt to cut incomes of poorest in new Omnibus Bill

ACOSS today urged the Federal Parliament to stand firm against measures in the new Government Omnibus Bill that will cut the incomes of some of the poorest people, including families, to fund child care reforms.

“This is the latest attempt by the Government to push through harsh cuts that will rip $7 billion from the social security budget. It includes previously rejected ‘zombie’ measures, such as the five-week wait for unemployment payments, further cuts to family payments, and abolition of the energy supplement, which will slash the incomes of two million future recipients of income support,” said ACOSS CEO Dr Cassandra Goldie.

“The so-called concessions the Government has made will be wiped out by other changes in the Bill, leaving many low-income people worse off.

“Of course we all want greater support for families to get better quality childcare but it cannot be funded on the backs of some of the most disadvantaged people in our country.

“This is not the way to build a strong community – caring for each other through all stages of our lives has served our nation well. This new bill risks weakening our social fabric.

“The increase to the Family Tax Benefit Part A for families with children by $10 a week does not make up for cuts to the supplements. A sole parent with two children aged 13 and 15 will still lose between $14 and $20 per week, or around $1,000 a year.

“Although this is less of a hit than under the previous proposal, it will still severely impact single parents, most of whom are struggling to keep a roof over their heads and feed their children as well as provide for them in the new school year.

“We are concerned the new Bill also includes unfair measures previously and repeatedly rejected by Federal Parliament and the broader community, such as making young people who become unemployed wait five weeks to receive income support.  This measure will not create jobs and merely punishes people who lose one.

“Abolishing the energy supplement will cut between $4-$7 a week from people on the lowest incomes, including pensioners, students, families, and people locked out of paid work.

“We have been consistent in our opposition to any watering down of paid parental leave and oppose any weakening of the current system, which currently ranks second to last in the OECD.

“This zombie Bill would only serve to increase poverty and inequality in Australia and Parliament must reject it,” Dr Goldie said.

More information on ‘zombie’ measures:

Monday 7 November 2016

Australia still losing full-time employment positions and the Turnbull Government still denying reality of the job market




20 October 2016

Shift to part-time employment continues

Monthly trend employment in Australia increased slightly in September 2016, according to figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today.

In September 2016, trend employment increased by 3,900 persons to 11,959,500 persons - a monthly growth rate of 0.03 per cent. This is down from the monthly employment growth peak of 0.28 per cent in September 2015. Trend part-time employment growth continued, with an increase of 11,800 persons, while full-time employment decreased by 7,900 persons.

”The latest Labour Force release shows further increases in part-time employment. There are now 130,000 more persons working part-time than in December 2015, while the number working full-time has decreased by 54,100 persons," said the Program Manager of ABS' Labour and Income Branch, Jacqui Jones.

The trend monthly hours worked increased by 2.2 million hours (0.1 per cent), though it is still below the high in December 2015.

The trend unemployment rate decreased slightly (by less than 0.1 percentage points) to 5.6 per cent, and the participation rate decreased 0.1 percentage points but remained steady at 64.7 per cent in rounded terms.

Trend series smooth the more volatile seasonally adjusted estimates and provide the best measure of the underlying behaviour of the labour market.

The seasonally adjusted number of persons employed decreased by 9,800 in September 2016. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for September 2016 decreased by 0.1 percentage points to 5.6 per cent, and the seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 64.5 per cent.

More details are in the September 2016 issue of Labour Force, Australia (cat. no. 6202.0). In addition, further information, including regional labour market information, can be found in the upcoming September 2016 issue of Labour Force, Australia, Detailed - Electronic Delivery(cat. no. 6291.0.55.001), due for release on 27 October 2016. 

In August 2016 there were an est. total of 179,000 full-time and part-time job vacancies in Australia, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics. By September 2016 this figure had dropped to est. 161,1000 job vacancies, according to the Australian Government Dept. of Employment.

In September 2016 there were est. 690,900 unemployed people in Australia. An est. 20 per cent of these people were under 25 years of age.

An est. 480,400 unemployed people were looking for full-time work (est. 39 per cent of this number were females) and on average they each spent 47.1 months doing so.

An additional est. 209,900 unemployed people were looking for part-time work and, as est. 59 per cent of this number were females one could suspect that many were only seeking part-time rather than full-time work because of competing child raising/carer obligations.

Despite these figures indicating that a high number of unemployed people are competing for jobs in a shrinking pool of employment opportunities, the Turnbull Government through the Minister for Social Services and Liberal MP for Pearce Christian “inequality is a measure of difference not a measure of comparative wellbeing”  Porter insists on demonising those applying for unemployment benefits while they search for work, as well as those women who seek to lawfully access government paid parental leave payments in additional to their employer schemes so that they may return to work at an appropriate time and, single parents receiving parenting payments.

The Turnbull Government’s new policy approach based on the June 2016 Baseline Valuation Report allegedly providing a baseline analysis of lifetime welfare costs and highlighting areas of interest is not worth the paper it was printed on – as has been pointed out elsewhere.

And the example of the stay-at-home single parent of four earning more than a similar parent working full-time is nothing but a pile of political manure, as was shown it this report in The Sydney Morning Herald on 29 October 2016:

The claim, published in The Australian on Friday and backed up by Social Services Minister Christian Porter, is that single parents with four children can get payments totalling $52,523 per year if they don't work but only $49,831 after tax if they work and receive the median full-time wage…..

Former Department of Social Security analyst David Plunkett said the calculation excluded $30,916 in family tax benefits that the parent working full-time would also receive, meaning that when "apples are compared with apples", the parent would receive $80,747 if working and $52,523 per year if not working.


Ben Stiller writing in The Sydney Morning Herald on 26 September 2016 gave a telling response to this blinkered federal government’s approach to jobs ‘n’ growth:

I've now spent most of my life working with people the minister has declared there is a "moral imperative" to get off welfare, many of them living lives impacted by profound disadvantages to participation in employment. All of them people who, like me, just want an opportunity to make their life better.

Unlike me, though, they are often trying to manage multiple disadvantages associated with physical health, mental health, family breakdown, lack of education, high local unemployment rates, discrimination and stigmas.

We can choose to apply moral judgment to people so easily attributed to a budget line and described as having a "lifetime of welfare dependence". After all, almost everyone reading this is a success. We made a go of things, overcame our challenges. We pay our taxes. These people are scientifically calculated to spend their lives without bothering to get a job.

Except there aren't any new low-skilled jobs for a 19-year-old single mother with a year 10 education that structure flexible working arrangements around caring responsibilities, childcare pick-ups, court appearances to renew AVOs and night-time community centre literacy/numeracy classes. Even the "welfare dependant" strive to help their children with homework.

As for the old unskilled jobs, they've all been undermined, underpaid and offshored. The new skills needed to get a job cost tens of thousands of dollars and if you happen to pick a dodgy private provider then all that debt has gone into a worthless piece of paper.

When there are no jobs, when there are no opportunities and there is no hope for improvement we have created poverty. As St Vincent de Paul Society CEO Dr John Falzon said, "Poverty is not a personal choice." In poverty there are no choices. People do what they need to do in the world in which they live in order to survive.

I've seen people line up like cattle for hours in the rain to receive a basket of tinned food or a $20 supermarket voucher (Don't worry, Minister, they were always marked "No tobacco. No alcohol"). I've seen people pretend to be someone else to try to get an extra basket because family have come from interstate on the bus and they have nothing to feed them.

Those aren't choices made by people with options and opportunities, they are attempts to survive in a system that confuses, abuses and punishes.

I would like to take this opportunity to make one thing very clear to every politician and print or television journalist who may be tempted to continue to demonise people receiving Centrelink or Dept. of Veterans’ Affairs pensions, benefits or allowances.

They are not the only people in Australia receiving in kind or cash welfare from the federal government.

By way of example*:
* Every person or business receiving a tax concession or tax refund is receiving government welfare. 
* Everyone taking advantage of low taxing components in their superannuation arrangements is receiving government welfare. 
* Every individual who received a primary and high school education received government welfare through state/federal subsidies to schools and/or tax concession to peak religious organisations running them. 
* Every student who took advantage of deferred fee payment options during their university education years received government welfare. 
* Everyone turning up at A&E at a public hospital is receiving government welfare.
* Every parent who took their children to be immunized under the national immunization scheme received government welfare.
* Everyone with or without a a concession card who reached the annual PBS Safety Net threshold and was subsequently supplied with reduced cost/free medication received government welfare.
* Every person receiving non-income tested assistance from any government health or social program is receiving government welfare.

In other words, every single person in Australia receives government welfare – sometimes for years!

* This is not an exhaustive list of examples

Friday 6 May 2016

Multimillionarie Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's 'churn & burn' path for unemployed, low-skilled youth


Set out below are the official bare bones of the Youth Jobs PaTH  internships for unemployed 17-24 year olds that the Turnbull Government is offering from 1 April 2017.

What these bones both reveal and conceal is that in 2017-18 an est. 30,000 young people jobless for six months or more will be set to work between 15-25 hours a week for 4 to 12 weeks in mainly low skilled jobs in supermarkets, cafĂ©s,  newsagents or other businesses in order to receive an additional $100 a week in Centrelink benefits - while the erstwhile ‘employer’ pockets $1,000 upfront for so generously offering to accept free labour arranged through JobActive employment service providers.
==============================================
The Government will provide $751.7 million over four years from 2016‑17 to establish a Youth Jobs PaTH program for young job seekers aged under 25 years to improve youth employment outcomes. The new pathway is designed to enhance young people's employability and provide up to 30,000 young people each year with real work experience. The pathway has three elements:
Industry‑endorsed pre‑employment training (Prepare) — from 1 April 2017, training for up to six weeks will be provided to develop basic employability skills, including those required to identify and secure sustainable employment.
Internship placements of up to twelve weeks (Trial) — from 1 April 2017, up to 30,000 internship placements will be offered each year to enable businesses and job seekers to trial their employment fit. Job seekers will receive a $200 fortnightly incentive payment and businesses will receive $1,000 upfront to host an intern. Placements will be voluntary and will be organised by employment services providers. Job seekers must be registered with jobactiveDisability Employment Services or Transition to Work, and have been in employment services for at least six months to be eligible for the internship program.
Youth Bonus wage subsidies (Hire) — from 1 January 2017, employers will receive a wage subsidy of up to $10,000 for job seekers under 25 years old with barriers to employment and will continue to receive up to $6,500 for the most job‑ready job seekers. Job seekers must be registered with 
jobactive orTransition to Work, and have been in employment services for at least six months for employers to be eligible for the wage subsidy. Funding for this component will be provided from within the existing funding for wage subsidies.

The program will include an employer mobilisation strategy to encourage participation in the initiative by all employers.
As part of this measure, the Government will also achieve savings of $204.2 million over four years. The design of wage subsidies available through jobactive will be improved to reduce red tape for employers, including by simplifying payments and enabling employers to choose more flexible payment arrangements.
==============================================

So how is the Coalition's 'supadupa' Jobactive Australia scheme going?


This is an excerpt from a Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Minister for Employment Senator Eric Abetz, MP for Cowper and Assistant Minister for Employment Luke Hartsuyker joint media release on 31 March 2015:

In 1998, the Howard Government introduced the Job Network and revolutionised the delivery of employment services to job seekers.
Unfortunately, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd Government changed the employment services system to reward process over results and encourage training for training’s sake.
The system became mired in red tape, letting down job seekers and employers.
The new jobactive system will be focused on results and reward performance not process.
From 1 July 2015, 66 organisations will deliver one or more jobactive services to job seekers and employers across Australia.
There will be clearer incentives to ensure employment service providers are focused on better preparing job seekers to meet the needs of local employers and helping people to find and keep a job.
Service providers will no longer receive ‘job placement’ payments.
The rules around training have also been tightened to ensure that job seekers are not being sent to training for training’s sake, as is currently the case.
There will be less red tape so that providers can spend more time doing what they do best – helping job seekers find and keep a job.
The new employment services contract will also be extended from three years to five years.
A new regional loading for providers in selected regions will be introduced, recognising that labour market conditions vary across Australia.
The new model encourages young job seekers to take up a job and employers to take on new employees.
The Job Commitment Bonus programme will encourage young, long-term unemployed job seekers aged 18-30 to find and keep a job.

Setting up Jobactive Australia cost an est. $6.756 million according to the Dept. of Employment.

In the first two months it was operating (1 July 2015 to 30 September 2015) those approved service providers billed the Employment Fund General Account a total of $6.170 million predominately for professional services, training, clothing & presentation.

On 17 September 2015 Employment Minister Eric Abetz boasted that Jobactive Australia had reached 50,000 job placements since the start of the scheme. However he was careful not to qualify what comprised a 'placement'.

According to the Dept. of Employment Budget Statements 2015-16 Jobactive Australia was allocated $1.459 billion for that financial year. This budget expense is expected to rise to $1.778 billion in 2016-17, with total employment services expenses expected to total $1.932 billion.

For that amount of money the Abbott-Turnbull Government expects the Jobactive scheme to have placed 380,000 jobseekers in often wage-subsidised employment in 2015-16, at a cost of est.$2,500 per placement covering Employment Fund expenditure, service fees and outcome payments.

Unfortunately 68% of these placements are likely to last only 4 weeks before the person is unemployed once more. I suspect the percentage of temporary jobs is so high because this allows service providers to bill the government again and again for ‘helping’ those same job seekers find other temporary jobs once the initial placement dissolves into thin air and, via the $1.2 billion national wage subsidy pool potentially allows employers to 'churn' new employees on short term contacts so that employers receive financial benefits from the pool but employees are unemployed at contract's end.

None of the departmental employment sustainability measures encompass positions lasting longer than six months, so it is unclear as to whether there is a genuine expectation that job service providers will assist in finding permanent employment for anyone.

In July 2015 when Jobactive Australia commenced, the real national unemployment rate was probably running at est. 8.7% and by March 2016 it had climbed to est.11% according Roy Morgan Research vs ABS Employment Estimates (1992-2016).

In November 2013 the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) seasonally adjusted combined unemployment and underemployment rate (underutilisation) was 13.5% and by February 2016 this combined rate was 14.2%.

In September 2013 the average number of weeks an unemployed person spent looking for a job was 39, with an est.134,400 people looking for 52 weeks and over.
Under the Abbott-Turnbull Government by March 2016 the average number of weeks had risen to 46.2, with an est. 181,700 people looking for 52 weeks and over. [Australian Bureau of Statistics, Labour Force, Australia, Detailed - Electronic Delivery, Mar 2016] 

In June 2014 an est. 123,800 15 to 24 year-olds were looking for full time or part-time work. By March 2016 the number of young people in this category had risen to 133,000. [ibid]

The Brotherhood of St. Laurence reported on 14 March 2016 that some rural and regional areas weregrappling with youth unemployment rates above 20 per cent.

Richmond-Tweed (including Tweed Heads, Byron Bay, Lismore, Mullumbimby) in the NSW Northern Rivers region had a youth unemployment rate of 14.5% in January 2015 and by January 2016 this rate had risen to 17.4% [Brotherhood of St Laurence, Australia’s Youth Unemployment Hotspots: Snapshot March 2016, p. 3]

Yet on 1 May 2016 Treasurer Scott Morrison was telling The Courier Mail that there had been 50,000 youth jobs created in the past 18 months across Australia. He also was offering no supporting proof for this bold statement covering November 2015 to April 2016 and, as neither ABS labour force nor job vacancy data tracks jobs growth it is hard to see where he finding his figures.

Somehow these statistics engender little confidence that the Liberal-Nationals Coalition has taken a genuinely constructive approach to unemployment since winning government in September 2013 – despite that gung-ho media release announcing “jobactive services”.

Tuesday 8 March 2016

Australian Federal Election 2016: Malcolm Bligh Turnbull's mother of all wars on the poor


If there was any doubt left that Prime Minster Malcolm Bligh Turnbull, who has been a millionaire for the last thirty-three years, is that classic form of well-heeled Liberal Party politician who believes that being poor and/or poorly educated is the personal fault of all individuals in those situations, then this report in New Matilda on 5 March 2016 should lay those doubts to rest:

Unemployed and underemployed Australians can be issued with on-the-spot fines by privately owned job agencies under a tough new Government proposal, writes Owen Bennett.
Later this month the Turnbull Government will be asking the Senate to support one of the most devastating attacks launched against poor and vulnerable Australians in recent memory.

The Bill – entitled Social Security Legislation Amendment (Further Strengthening Job Seeker Compliance) Bill 2015 – proposes to give privately run job agencies unprecedented new powers to financially penalise unemployed and underemployed Australians. If passed, the fines will come into effect on July 1 this year.

Under the proposal, Australians receiving the dole can be fined 10 per cent of their income support – increasing by 10 per cent each day until they ‘re-engage’ – if they:

* Fail to sign a job plan at their first job agency appointment; or
* Are found by their job agency to have behaved inappropriately at an appointment (“inappropriate behaviour” is defined as acting in a manner “such that the purpose of the appointment is not achieved”); or
* Fail to attend a Work for the Dole or Training exercise without an excuse deemed reasonable by the job agency.

All fines (roughly $55) will be deducted immediately. Unemployed Australians who feel they have been unfairly fined will be required to go through Centrelink’s arduous appeals process to get their money back – a procedure that can take up to four months.

This means that even if an unemployed worker successfully appeals against a fine – and thousands do every year – they will still be forced to endure up to four months without a significant portion of their income support.

As privately run job agencies can effectively impose these financial penalties on unemployed workers before having to provide any concrete proof, the Coalition’s proposal gives privately-owned job agencies the power of life and death over unemployed workers.

With the dole already $391 below the poverty line according to the Melbourne Institute, for many unemployed workers a 10 per cent deduction of their income support will place them in severe financial distress.

If this proposal is passed next month, unemployed Australians will be just one unfair penalty away from extreme poverty and even homelessness.….

Here is the Turnbull Government official spin on this bill, circulated by authority of the then Assistant Minister for Employment, Cowper MP Luke Hartsuyker.

Turnbull & Co expect to remove up to a total of $24.5 million from the pockets of the unemployed over the next three and a half years using the provisions in this bill.

Thursday 6 November 2014

Unemployment on the NSW North Coast June Quarter 2013 to June Quarter 2014


Australian Bureau of Statistics Small Area Labour Markets data covering June Quarter 2013 to June Quarter 2014 across the nation give an indication of how the regions are faring when it comes to employment levels.

For those interested, the document below also gives figures for specific Level 2 Statistical Areas.

On the NSW North Coast these figures cover areas such as Casino, Evans Head, Mullumbimby, Grafton, Maclean-Yamba-Iluka, Lennox Head, Kingscliff etc.

Unemployment by North Coast Local Government Area

Ballina
June Quarter 2013 - 5.7%
June Quarter 2014 - 5.5% Labour Force 19,013 people

Byron Bay
June Quarter 2013 - 9.3%
June Quarter 2014 - 8.8% Labour Force 15,503 people

Clarence Valley
June Quarter 2013 - 7.6%
June Quarter 2014 - 7.5% Labour Force 21,888 people

Kyogle
June Quarter 2013 - 7.9%
June Quarter 2014 - 8.2% Labour Force 4,109 people

Lismore
June Quarter 2013 - 7.5%
June Quarter 2014 - 7.3% Labour Force 21,480

Richmond Valley
June 2013 - 8.6%
June 2014 - 8.3% Labour Force 9,310
Tweed
June Quarter 2013 - 6.7%
June Quarter 2014 - 6.6% Labour Force 38,942 people

Coffs Harbour
June Quarter 2013 - 6.1%
June Quarter 2014 - 5.8% Labour Force 35,035 people