A federal government shake-up of employment services and job providers will disrupt hundreds of thousands of long-term unemployed and risk up to 10,000 jobs, the sector’s peak body has warned.
The federal government will pay private and non-profit organisations in the employment services industry $6 billion over the next four years to help the long-term unemployed successfully apply for, and keep, jobs.Ms Sinclair said there appeared to be little reason for the awarding of some contracts, with a large proportion of high-performing providers losing their contracts in established regions but winning them in new areas.
The government’s awarding of some $6 billion in employment services contracts for the next four years has occurred againstand enhanced face-to-face services for long-term unemployed through a rebranded system called Workforce Australia. “Moreover, the NESA was a member of the government-appointed independent Expert Advisory Panel, whose reportMs Sinclair said although NESA was in favour of more contestability she had not seen disruption on such scale in her three decades in the sector and warned it could put at risk reforms because new providers took “months or years to establish social capital”.“I told people that next to the establishment of the job network in 1998 this will be the biggest program of reform that we’ve had.