Workforce Australia is driving tax payer monies to worthless and insulting job agencies. This story is from the ABC.
Rebekah Maslen has been working hard to prepare herself for a new career. She is on benefits from Workforce Australia.
She is a completing a diploma of early childhood education, which includes 24 hours per week on placement, plus about 15 hours of study and two days of classes.
“I would say the transition has been appalling,” she said. “The way I’ve been treated … and the lack of information around how to use the system in detail [has] not been a very good experience.”
At the start of July, more than 800,000 jobseekers transferred to Workforce Australia, which has been pitched as a more flexible alternative to the maligned jobactive system.
To continue receiving the JobSeeker payment, most people need to perform mutual obligations — tasks set by the government aimed at enhancing employability.
Under jobactive, mutual obligations most commonly revolved around job applications, and jobseekers needed to submit 20 a month.
Now, those required to complete mutual obligations have transitioned to a system where they earn points for completing a wider range of activities, such as short courses, getting a drivers licence or attending a job fair.
If they do not receive a certain number of points each month, their payments can be suspended.
Ms Maslen said she was told by her job provider that to comply with the new system she must apply for at least four other jobs every month on top of her diploma and placement.
“The things you’re asked to do for getting points, things like getting a forklift licence …I don’t find very helpful as someone who’s studying childcare,” she said.
“I feel penalised for choosing to study and to do a placement,” she said.
A raft of other issues has surfaced since the scheme launched. The ABC has heard reports of jobseekers:
- Being recommended jobs based in states they do not live in and requiring qualifications they do not have
- Travelling hundreds of kilometres for short face-to-face appointments with providers which they said could have been done remotely
- Entering information on the Workforce Australia app or website which was not later accessible to providers
- Having to complete skills seminars on things they already know and complete questionnaires assessing whether “zest” was a character strength of theirs.