Talk about intergenerational tension. The ABC ran a story yesterday which said employers could sack older, experienced staff and replace them with workers earning just a third of the salary and get a taxpayer-funded JobMaker grant to do it.

I’ve edited the ABC story down and chucked in my ten cents worth.

The JobMaker subsidy pays companies up to $200 a week to hire people under 30. Treasury states that employers could sack and older worker earning $75,000 and replace them with three staff on $30,000 and JobMaker will pay the $15,000 gap.

In his budget speech, the Treasurer claimed the $4 billion policy would “support” 450,000 jobs. Treasury has been forced to admit that does not mean JobMaker will actually create that many new jobs.

Alas, these job subsidy schemes rarely work well. Modelling states that less than one tenth of the 450,000 jobs the subsidy was meant to make, will eventuate.

But some employers will certainly sack and ‘oldie’. We’ll see more jobs churn – if that’s possible. It will increase the precariousness of the workforce. If you want to read more about labour market precariousness, check this out.

What we’re seeing now is a massive rise in casual and part time work. People are falling out of the labour market because they keep getting knock backs. They give up.

The point of the subsidy was to boost the number of young people hired, but the trade-off is that people over the age of 35 will miss out, even if they have the same skills and experience.