Nearly 90% of jobseekers unable to get long-term work despite millions spent on private job agencies
Australia’s private employment services are failing to get jobseekers into long-term work, despite costing taxpayers millions of dollars each year, department documents show,Just 11,7% of jobseekers in Australia found long-term employment through a job provider in the latest financial year, according to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations’ annual report,Service providers are allowed to claim publicly funded outcome payments when clients have completed four, 12 and 26 weeks in employment – regardless of whether the client or provider found the job,Guardian Australia has previously revealed many jobseekers who find their own employment were bullied into handing over payslips so providers can claim the public money.
Sign up: AU Breaking News emailThe government sets a target for providers to have 15% of the cohort hit the 26-week employment mark, but the report shows this has not been met since Workforce Australia started in 2022.The target is based on historic outcome rates across previous programs, the department said.“This measure has not been achieved since it was first reported,” the report said.“The result for the 12-month period to 30 June 2024 was 13.2%.
“Further, results over 2 years show a declining trend in the outcome rate.”The report shows that despite the number of jobseekers who are finding work falling, public funding has increased, with the “investment per employment outcome” hitting $3,575.The department said the result was based on a caseload of 590,965 people in the reporting period.In October 2024, the department launched a complaints line for employment services which has received 8,320 complaints across the year.The majority resolved at first contact.
Jeremy Poxon, a welfare advocate at the Antipoverty Centre, said the system was failing “en mass” to help get people into meaningful work.“The government knows full well that this system is failing on this basic metric to help people into work,” he said.It came as Guardian Australia revealed Centrelink has threatened payment suspensions to jobseekers at a rate of five a minute, despite serious concerns from social security experts that they are illegal.Poxon said the data showed the system was better at punishing people than helping them into employment.Sign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksafter newsletter promotion“And still the government is content with funnelling billions of dollars into an employment system that isn’t helping people into employment,” he said.
In the annual report, the government said the low number of jobseekers finding work was influenced by the labour market, with a “growing skills mismatch” between the jobs on offer and the level of training and education people have been able to undertake.“Throughout the reporting period, the labour market reflected demand for higher-skilled jobs, rather than low-skilled jobs that are most accessible to participants in Workforce Australia Services,” the report said.Poxon said this was the “great elephant in the room”.“We’re dealing with a population who are essentially competing for jobs that don’t exist, but are also further structurally disadvantaged by being homeless or culturally and linguistically diverse,” he said.Poxon called for the whole employment services system to be overhauled, with mutual obligation abolished, payment suspensions stopped and investment in voluntary programs that actually help people find work.
“We’re in this absurd position where the government is spending even more money for even worse outcomes, year on year on year,’ he said.“It’s hard to think of another government-funded industry allowed to operate in this way … to continue soaking up so much public money and to spit out so few results.”
We need clarity on big pharma’s tax breaks | Letters
The outgoing chief executive of the pharmaceutical company GSK says the NHS should pay more for its drugs, in order to create “the right commercial environment” and ensure “patient access to innovation” (UK must reform drug pricing to become life sciences superpower, says GSK boss, 29 October).Our research shows that UK taxpayers are already paying handsomely for “patient access to innovation” through the £3.4bn in tax relief on profits of patented drugs that the UK has granted GSK via the UK’s “patent box” tax regime. This includes £486m in 2024 alone – larger than the entire budget of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, the UK’s main bioscience innovation funder.HMRC even granted UK tax relief to GSK on profits of a lupus drug, which for several years was unavailable to UK lupus sufferers, due to the price that GSK demanded from the NHS (£769
Time for Reeves to recognise reality: AstraZeneca has killed stamp duty on shares | Nils Pratley
It was one of those votes where the majority was always going to be huge. AstraZeneca’s proposal to list its shares directly on the New York Stock Exchange while retaining the quotes in London and Stockholm disadvantages nobody on the shareholder register.US investors get the chance to own AstraZeneca in full-fat form rather than via American depositary receipts (a wrapper provided by a handful of banks), a rejig that should widen the pool of potential investors and help the company with any future big deals in the US. Meanwhile, the pharma giant keeps its presence in the FTSE 100 index, upsetting no shareholders on the home front. “A global listing for global investors in a global company,” as Pascal Soriot, the chief executive, called it
‘History won’t forgive us’ if UK falls behind in quantum computing race, says Tony Blair
Tony Blair has said “history won’t forgive us” if the UK falls behind in the race to harness quantum computing, a frontier technology predicted to trigger the next wave of breakthroughs in everything from drug design to climate modelling.The former British Labour prime minister, whose thinktank and consultancy, the Tony Blair Institute, is backed by tech industry leaders including the Oracle founder, Larry Ellison, warned: “The country risks failing to convert its leadership in quantum research.”In a report calling for a national strategy for quantum computing, Blair and William Hague, a former Conservative party leader, compared the situation to the recent history of artificial intelligence, where the UK was responsible for important research breakthroughs but then ceded power to other countries, including the US, leading to a scramble to build “sovereign” AI capacity.“As we have seen with AI, a strong research and development base is not enough: it is the countries that have the infrastructure and capital for scale that capture technology’s economic and strategic benefits,” they said. “While the UK is home to the second highest number of quantum startups in the world, it lacks the necessary high-risk capital and infrastructure to scale those startups
In Grok we don’t trust: academics assess Elon Musk’s AI-powered encyclopedia
The eminent British historian Sir Richard Evans produced three expert witness reports for the libel trial involving the Holocaust denier David Irving, studied for a doctorate under the supervision of Theodore Zeldin, succeeded David Cannadine as Regius professor of history at Cambridge (a post endowed by Henry VIII) and supervised theses on Bismarck’s social policy.That was some of what you could learn from Grokipedia, the AI-powered encyclopedia launched last week by the world’s richest person, Elon Musk. The problem was, as Prof Evans discovered when he logged on to check his own entry, all these facts were false.It was part of a choppy start for humanity’s latest attempt to corral the sum of human knowledge or, as Musk put it, create a compendium of “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” – all revealed through the magic of his Grok artificial intelligence model.When the multibillionaire switched on Grokipedia on Tuesday, he said it was “better than Wikipedia”, or “Wokepedia” as his supporters call it, reflecting a view that the dominant online encyclopedia often reflects leftwing talking points
WTA Finals: Rybakina downs Swiatek, Anisimova fights back to beat Keys – as it happened
Elena Rybakina is through to the last four of the WTA Finals after producing a storming comeback to beat Iga Swiatek in Riyadh. Rybakina, from Kazakhstan, lost the first set after a single break in 36 minutes, but turned the match on its head in the second and went on to win 12 of the next 13 games.The win, coupled with Amanda Anisimova’s three-set victory over Madison Keys, ensured that Rybakina will finish top of the Serena Williams Group and secure a semi-final berth, while Swiatek and Anisimova with battle it out for the second spot on Wednesday.Swiatek, the world No 2, thrashed Keys 6-1 6-2 in her opening round-robin clash, but was twice broken in the second set against Rybakina before failing to win a game in the decider to lose 6-3 1-6 0-6. Rybakina, who had lost each of her previous four matches against Swiatek, has now played two and won two in Riyadh following a 6-3 6-1 triumph over Anisimova in her tournament opener
Steward injury could offer Smith the chance to start for England against Fiji
A hand injury to the full-back Freddie Steward could present Marcus Smith with a fresh chance to start for England when they face Fiji at Twickenham on Saturday.Steve Borthwick’s team will meet the Pacific Islanders in the second of four November internationals after a comfortable opening victory against Australia, but the No 15 jersey may become a significant problem for the England head coach.Steward, who started against the Wallabies, received treatment at pitchside in the second half at Twickenham and appeared to be in considerable pain but stayed on for 80 minutes. It is understood that he will not return to training until Thursday.With the full-backs George Furbank of Northampton and Elliot Daly of Saracens already ruled out, Steward’s setback may provide a chance for Smith
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