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Dismantle the Job Network

In the wake of the Federal Government’s overhaul of the Job Network I bet Job Network staff are crying into their chipped “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!” coffee mugs. I usually have sympathy with those in slashed government-funded services, but not this time. In fact, the only argument I have is that the Government should have killed this bloated, self-serving efficiency drain outright and not just wounded it.

A dumb idea is born

The previous Liberal government replaced the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) in 1998 with a decentralised and privatised system, the Job Network (JN). Different organisations – some private, some non-profit, and some specialists in supporting the disadvantaged – would be funded to match jobs to jobseekers and train and support the unemployed. Allegedly, it was going to be cheaper and more efficient than a centralised, unwieldy bureaucratic agency. The number of agencies reflected, in the jargon of JN aims, “the use of competition to drive greater efficiency for the taxpayer and increased choice for consumers”.

In reality, the Job Network spent ten years too busy elbowing their way to the funding trough to reflect on what they were doing for the unemployed or employers. Which was bugger-all; something that even the politicised Productivity Commission admitted in its 2002 report into the system.

How it ‘works’

There are two main ways for a Job Network provider to get money: place their client in a job or offer Intensive Assistance to disadvantaged clients (long-term unemployed, disabled, indigenous etc).

Putting someone who’s been unemployed for less than two years in a job nets the provider $1650 if they stay there more than 13 weeks.  It doesn’t have to be the right job for the right person, just a job. “So it should be,” say some. “I pay my taxes and I don’t want some dole bludger turning down work to go surfing”. The problem is, cramming anyone into any job isn’t good for employee or employer. JN providers are uniquely gifted at putting the shy and/or poor English speakers into telemarketing, people with bad backs into cleaning, over-40s computer-phobes into admin, and people with no transport into a two-hou-a-day casual job 90 minutes away by car with 5am starts.

$1650 is a nice little earner, but the real money for the Job Network is in Intensive Assistance. That’s Job Search Training and ‘Customised Assistance’ for the long-term unemployed and disadvantaged. After a tragically long unemployment stint a few years back, I landed in a leading provider’s Job Search Training course. Over three fulltime weeks, I learned that resumes should be good, not bad; that most jobs weren’t advertised so we should cold-call; and that jobseekers shouldn’t be fussy about the jobs they apply for. That took care of an hour, leaving only 104 hours to twiddle our thumbs and fight over the one cold-calling phone.

The Job Network has been criticised for failing the long-term unemployed and disadvantaged by focusing only on work and not on overcoming personal barriers but I think some of it misses the point. I have friends who’ve worked in the Job Network who have been strongly encouraged to keep Highly Disadvantaged (HD) clients in training programs and face-to-face assistance as long as they can. In other words, they’re worth more to their JN provider unemployed than employed. The Productivity Commission’s 2002 assessment into the Job Network found that “Intensive Support (comprising Job Search Training and Customised Assistance) will comprise around 80 per cent of Job Network providers’ revenue in ESC3”. ESC3 was Employment Services Contract 3, a contractual obligation for long-term unemployed and/or disadvantaged.

Inside the asylum

The average Job Network office combines the efficiency of Fawlty Towers with the cheeriness and warmth of a Romanian orphanage. Don’t get me wrong; some nice people work there. Or used to, since the staff turnover is so high that, if you don’t like your employment consultant, just wait five minutes.

Job Network clients are encouraged – and after a couple of months, forced – to travel to a JN office to use their jobseeking resources. These usually consist of the local jobs section from three days ago, a roomful of computers with no staff around to tell people how to use them or unlock the passwords, and the Yellow Pages. Sometimes they have a jobs board; I was impressed that my current JN provider included (in March) a job ad with a closing date in early January.

The staff, victims themselves of pressure to deliver profit and suffering from high burnout levels, don’t appear to have many useful skills to share with the unemployed. They tell participants that most jobs are unadvertised, but can’t tell them how to use informational interviews or networks. They just order them to cold-call from the phonebook. They tell their clients to jazz up their resume, but don’t provide anything helpful like a resume service, or even a colour printer. I guess they don’t get funded for such things.

In other words, these paid professionals can’t provide a service that can be found free in your local library via the book What Colour Is Your Parachute? They can’t even help with specific applications advertised with their service, since they routinely withhold information about the employer from the jobseeker. (“It’s a retail position in a big company somewhere. I can’t say more”). This is insanely counterproductive, since everyone knows that the applicant who demonstrates knowledge of the company they’re applying to increases their chance of getting the job.

JN providers get lots of money taking on High Disadvantage (HD) clients, but seem to have no idea how to remove their barriers to employment. Even specialised services for the disadvantaged, I’ve heard from friends in the Disability Employment Network, have no idea how to help their clients. I have seen JN caseworkers flummoxed by women re-entering the workforce after raising children (odd, considering that they come across as the most highly motivated clients). (See True Stories From Job Network)

They don’t get paid for letting a client from another Job Network provider fill their vacancy, so they tend to fob off ‘outsiders’ calling about a job. (See: True Stories From the Job Network)

They do get paid, though, when their clients get a job; even if the client gets the job through no help from the Job Network provider. I’ve only gotten jobs through ads, contacts and door-to-door resume shopping – never from the Job Network. That has never stopped them from demanding my employment details so they can claim government benefits. I’m not alone in this; check out other people’s experience in Web forums. 

So JN services, and their ever-changing roster of employees, are pressured to chase profits and at the same time comply with Byzantine Federal Government requirements. This is the problem with semi-privatised or ‘purchased’ services. Which master should they serve, the market or social need? The usual outcome is that they dither between the two, to the satisfaction of neither. They can’t afford to cast off the shackles of government funding guidelines, but they can’t afford to annoy potential employers either (especially considering how few they have). Job Network flunkeys have got to take it out on someone, and that would be their hapless clients.

Powerless in every other regard, the JN is the omnipotent overseer with their clients. Anything they regard as ‘noncompliance’ (lateness to appointments, refusal to cold-call employers from the phone book) can be used against the client in the form of recommending a Centrelink breach. Anecdotally (ok, in my experience and that of my friends who were either clients or JN workers) frustrated JN workers learn to take an adversarial approach to the unemployed. Don’t want to apply for cleaning jobs because of your back surgery? Noncompliance. Get an ulcer even thinking of talking to strangers? Go for an interview at the telemarketing company or get reported for noncompliance.

If the JN has to comply with government guidelines even when it’s impossible, their clients have to comply with the JN even when it’s impossible. (See: True Stories from the Job Network) 

Can we end the Job Network?

What we’re learning from current worldwide recession is that governments should provide services; not purchase them, provide rebates for them or farm them out. You can’t run a service for the disadvantaged as a business, and you can’t run a business that’s solely dependent on the government teat.

Maybe the former CES was overly bureaucratic, expensive and unwieldy. Still, the Job Network has been an unfortunate experiment in proving that privatised doesn’t always mean more efficient, and government-funded doesn’t always mean equitable. 

On December 2, 2006, the Australian newspaper obtained a leaked document showing that the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations paid $158.7 million to Job Network providers between July 2003 and April 2005. Two organisations had been paid more than $10 million, and 37 were paid more than $1 million.

I’m glad people are finally questioning the usefulness of the Job Network, but the next step would be to actually dismantle this nadir of grant-fuelled middleman inefficiency and corporate welfare. I suppose such a radical move is unlikely under a Prime Minister whose wife, Therese Rein, made a personal fortune from leading Job Network provider Work Directions.

Still, in my crazy Keynesian fantasy, the Federal Government will replace the Job Network fiasco with a revitalised, more efficient CES. (Government services have learned to work smarter, not harder, before. I’m sure they can do it again). 

The Government of my imaginary social democratic world will create jobs for the long-term and disadvantaged unemployed themselves, rather than trying to persuade reluctant employers to do so. They’ll include confidence-building and the fostering of networks in their job search training. Lastly, they’ll encourage their staff to read books like What Colour Is Your Parachute and use their wisdom.

Well, I can dream…

 

Carolyn Ride is a writer, editor and, according to the Job Network, has excellent communication skills which make her the ideal candidate for the position of baker’s assistant. 

Related posts:

1. True stories from the Job Network
2. Good karma job hunting: Connecting with the hidden job market

© 2009 weston culture.