Activating Jobseekers
How Australia Does It
![image of Activating Jobseekers image of Activating Jobseekers](https://assets.oecdcode.org/covers/100/g2g243fe.jpg)
This report on the recent Australian experience with activation policies contains valuable lessons for other countries that need to improve the effectiveness of employment services and control benefit expenditure. It provides overview and assessment of labour market policies in Australia including the main institutions, benefit system, training programmes, employment incentives, and disability employment assistance.
Australia is unique among OECD countries in that its mainstream employment services are all delivered by over 100 for-profit and non-profit providers competing in a “quasi-market”, with their operations financed by service fees, employment outcome payments, and a special fund for measures that tackle jobseekers’ barriers to employment. In most other OECD countries, these services are delivered by the Public Employment Service. In the mid 2000s, several benefits previously paid without a job-search requirement were closed or reformed, bringing more people into the effective labour force.
Australia now has one of the highest employment rates in the OECD and this report concludes that its activation system deserves some of the credit for this relatively good performance. The Job Services Australia model, introduced in 2009, reinforced the focus on employment outcomes for highly-disadvantaged groups. This report assesses the latest model for activation and puts forward some recommendations to improve its effectiveness.
- Click to access:
-
Click to download PDF - 3.24MBPDF
Executive summary
This report provides an overview and assessment of Australia’s labour market policies to tackle welfare benefit dependency and unemployment. It examines Australia’s main labour market institutions, employment services and other active and passive labour market programmes. Australia is unique among OECD countries in that its mainstream employment services are delivered by over 100 for-profit and nonprofit providers competing in a “quasimarket”, with their operations financed by service fees, employment outcome payments, and a special fund for measures that tackle jobseekers’ barriers to employment. In most other OECD countries these services are delivered by the Public Employment Service. The Job Services Australia model, introduced in 2009, reinforced the focus on employment outcomes for highly disadvantaged groups. This report assesses the latest reforms of Australia’s “activation” model and puts forward recommendations to improve its effectiveness.
- Click to access:
-
Click to download PDF - 292.99KBPDF