Anglicare Australia report finds low-skilled work hard to come by despite hot job market
The most disadvantaged out-of-work Australians are competing with
overqualified jobseekers for a dwindling proportion of entry-level
positions, a new report says.
Confirming a continuing reduction in the proportion of low-skill jobs in the labour market amid a jobs boom nationally, the findings were evidence that the low rate of Newstart was “absolutely irrational”, according to the executive director of Anglicare Australia.
For every entry-level job advertised, there were 4.26 people with significant barriers to employment applying for the position, according to the non-profit’s annual Jobs Availability Snapshot, released on Thursday.
The figures are a slight improvement from last year’s findings, which placed the ratio at closer to five people per entry-level job.
But the report found the improvement was not a result of there being more jobs for those who need them, but because the number of people classified as needing the most support from their job services provider had decreased.
That may have been the result of fewer people in need accessing or being granted the highest level of employment support, rather than because people were moving into employment.
“Over 1.13 million Australians were underemployed in our sample month, and some of them were likely to be applying for the same positions as entry-level job seekers.”
They included “recent graduates, retrenched workers, and other applicants with greater skills”.
Crucially, according to Anglicare, the proportion of overall jobs that were entry-level positions had declined to 14%, down from 15% last year and 22% in 2006. Entry-level jobs include cleaning, office support, farm work, food preparation, labouring and sales positions.
Kasy Chambers, the executive director of Anglicare, called for an immediate increase to the Newstart allowance as a first priority.
“To keep on punishing people for not getting into work that isn’t there seems to be absolutely irrational,” Chambers said.
“You have to question whose needs that is meeting. We can only surmise that’s a perceived political need.”
Chambers also said the report’s findings showed that the much-maligned employment services system Jobactive needed an overhaul so that it was tailored to an individual’s needs.
The program, currently the subject of a Senate inquiry, was “built to reward providers who churn quickly through jobs,” she said.
Overall, the report said there were 714,500 unemployed people as of May, while another 1,127,400 were underemployed.
Of the 673,771 people within the Jobactive network, 110,735 were in the Stream C caseload, meaning they needed the most assistance from a job services provider due to a range of complex barriers to employment.
At the same time, only 25,997 (14%) of the 185,662 advertised job vacancies were low skill, entry-level jobs.
While the national ratio for for entry-level jobs to Stream C job seekers stood at 4.26, it was 11.86 in Tasmania and 8.48 in South Australia.
Rebecca O’Rourke, 45, of Brisbane, fell out of work after experiencing domestic violence in 2014.
O’Rourke, who lives with anxiety, depression and PTSD, managed to find occasional work, but it was hard to secure a full-time job with an employer that could cater to her needs.
Jobseekers like her need flexibility rather than a rigid enforcement of the welfare rules, said O’Rourke, now an office manager at an National Disability Insurance Scheme provider.
In her case, she had been able to tell her Jobactive provider when she was in the right headspace to carry out her requirements.
“They were brilliant in talking me through that,” she said. “Before I knew it, I was doing what they’d asked before I even realised.”
Confirming a continuing reduction in the proportion of low-skill jobs in the labour market amid a jobs boom nationally, the findings were evidence that the low rate of Newstart was “absolutely irrational”, according to the executive director of Anglicare Australia.
For every entry-level job advertised, there were 4.26 people with significant barriers to employment applying for the position, according to the non-profit’s annual Jobs Availability Snapshot, released on Thursday.
The figures are a slight improvement from last year’s findings, which placed the ratio at closer to five people per entry-level job.
But the report found the improvement was not a result of there being more jobs for those who need them, but because the number of people classified as needing the most support from their job services provider had decreased.
That may have been the result of fewer people in need accessing or being granted the highest level of employment support, rather than because people were moving into employment.
“Over 1.13 million Australians were underemployed in our sample month, and some of them were likely to be applying for the same positions as entry-level job seekers.”
They included “recent graduates, retrenched workers, and other applicants with greater skills”.
Crucially, according to Anglicare, the proportion of overall jobs that were entry-level positions had declined to 14%, down from 15% last year and 22% in 2006. Entry-level jobs include cleaning, office support, farm work, food preparation, labouring and sales positions.
Kasy Chambers, the executive director of Anglicare, called for an immediate increase to the Newstart allowance as a first priority.
“To keep on punishing people for not getting into work that isn’t there seems to be absolutely irrational,” Chambers said.
“You have to question whose needs that is meeting. We can only surmise that’s a perceived political need.”
Chambers also said the report’s findings showed that the much-maligned employment services system Jobactive needed an overhaul so that it was tailored to an individual’s needs.
The program, currently the subject of a Senate inquiry, was “built to reward providers who churn quickly through jobs,” she said.
Overall, the report said there were 714,500 unemployed people as of May, while another 1,127,400 were underemployed.
Of the 673,771 people within the Jobactive network, 110,735 were in the Stream C caseload, meaning they needed the most assistance from a job services provider due to a range of complex barriers to employment.
At the same time, only 25,997 (14%) of the 185,662 advertised job vacancies were low skill, entry-level jobs.
While the national ratio for for entry-level jobs to Stream C job seekers stood at 4.26, it was 11.86 in Tasmania and 8.48 in South Australia.
Rebecca O’Rourke, 45, of Brisbane, fell out of work after experiencing domestic violence in 2014.
O’Rourke, who lives with anxiety, depression and PTSD, managed to find occasional work, but it was hard to secure a full-time job with an employer that could cater to her needs.
Jobseekers like her need flexibility rather than a rigid enforcement of the welfare rules, said O’Rourke, now an office manager at an National Disability Insurance Scheme provider.
In her case, she had been able to tell her Jobactive provider when she was in the right headspace to carry out her requirements.
“They were brilliant in talking me through that,” she said. “Before I knew it, I was doing what they’d asked before I even realised.”
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