This government is fully aware that their policy regarding unemployed people under 30 will cause enormous hardship. This is shown by the fact that they have allocated $229 million in the budget to deal with the expected 550,000 job seekers who would need emergency relief over the next four years.
ACOSS Chief Executive Officer Dr Cassandra Goldie said:
“It makes no sense for the government to pursue a policy that will cause this level of hardship and does little to give young people a sense of hope and self worth through getting a foothold into a real job.
Frontline agencies working with young people looking for work have made clear that depriving young people of payments and employment services will make it tougher for them to get ahead, especially those with no family support or from in families living on low incomes.”
Dr Goldie said the focus should be on opening up job opportunities for young people, in collaboration with business leaders, investors, local communities and social services.
“A more effective way to address youth and long-term unemployment is to invest in overcoming skills and capability related barriers to work,” she said. “Instead of penalising young people the government should invest in programs we know to be effective like Youth Connections which has been discontinued. They should also increase the availability of places in cost-effective wage subsidy programs like Wage Connect.
It’s disappointing that the Budget has cut funding to important career counselling and vocational programs such as Youth Connections, which has assisted over 74,000 young people since 2010. Ninety-three per cent of participants in this program were still engaged in study or paid work six months after completing the program in 2012 with most no longer receiving Centrelink payments. Similarly, 47 per cent of people out of work for over two years assisted by the Wage Connect wage subsidy scheme retained their positions after the program ended, which is more than double the results achieved under the work for the dole scheme”
The government has also announced that it will pay subsidies of up to $10,000 over two years to employers who hire mature workers over the age of 50. It is worth remembering that young people trying to enter the workforce will be competing with these experienced workers (and many others) who will also be seeking employment. Like these people…..
June 14: WOODSIDE Petroleum is looking to cut up to 800 jobs, or more than 20 per cent of its workforce, as part of a sweeping review of its business.
June 13: OceanaGold will cut 60 jobs from its Reefton gold mine as operations at the site wind down, approximately
June 12: About 250 Ford Australia workers will lose their jobs at the car manufacturer’s Broadmeadows and Geelong factories, it has been revealed.
June 11: Australia Post has told its workers 900 jobs will go as part of a restructure that will split its post and parcel businesses.
June 10: As part of the overall response to federal budget cuts of $115 million which are expected to cost 500 jobs across the entire organisation, CSIRO management has revealed a plan to scale back research and cut science jobs in the Marine and Atmospheric Research (CMAR) division.
May13: Federal budget puts Canberra on the razor’s edge with 16,500 public service jobs cut.
May 8: THE 2200 Qantas staff to be axed by June’s end will include 1000 managers and backoffice workers, with a further 500 jobs gone by the end of the year. The program includes 5000 job losses in total.
May 8: Toyota Motor Corporation has foreshadowed up to 160 additional Australian job cuts at its Victorian technical centre to coincide with the company’s car manufacturing operations shutting in 2017.
April 15: The closure of car manufacturing could cost Australia nearly 200,000 jobs and $29 billion in lost economic output, a new report predicts.
March 14: Up to 300 applicants are fighting for each public service job vacancy in Canberra and the main public sector union says more than 5000 job cuts have been announced since the Abbott government took office.
March 10: Technology giant IBM’s local managing director, Andrew Stevens, has conceded further Australian redundancies may be needed as part of a major repositioning of the company. Last week media reports said 500 local workers could face the chop, but that is a conservative figure compared to unverified estimates of more than 1000 this quarter, from anonymous company insiders.
February 25: The reports outline the Coalition’s intention to make it easier for employers to hire 457 visa workers and for major projects to import what they need from China with no obligation to prove they have given local industry an opportunity to bid through the Australian Jobs Act.
January 17: A QUARTER of a million Australian jobs have vanished since the start of the global financial crisis – with 22,000 jobs lost last month alone.
29/11/2013: About 1,100 jobs will be lost when the global miner Rio Tinto shuts its Gove alumina refinery in the Northern Territory next year.
5/11/2013 – Mining equipment manufacturer Caterpillar has announced it will cut up to 200 jobs at its Burnie plant.
25/10/2013 – Centennial Coal is cutting 120 jobs from its operations across New South Wales, with the majority of positions to come from the Mudgee and Lithgow areas.
22/10/2013 – Gold Fields has cut 60 workers from its newly acquired Lawlers operations, and a forthcoming operational review of the company’s newly acquired Yilgarn South mines has got employees worried more jobs will go.
22/10/2013 – Mining giant Rio Tinto has signed a back-office outsourcing deal with US tech player IBM, which is believed to be worth up to $100 million and will see the company shed between 700 and 800 positions globally.
3/10/2013 – Almost 16,000 workers have been lost from the mining industry as companies rush to slash costs amid a perfect storm of high costs and tumbling prices.
26/9/2013 – In the mining industry, job vacancies fell by almost 40% to 4,900 in the latest survey from a year earlier.
18/9/2013 – Up to a quarter of the nation’s Centrelink call centre workers are set to lose their jobs before the end of the year. Pensioners, the disabled and families will feel the pain of drastically reduced customer service as 1100 to 1200 customer service workers are shown the door by the Department of Human Services.
29/6/2013 – Dark clouds continue to gather over the nation’s coal industry. Job cuts at dozens of foreign and locally owned mines in Queensland and NSW total more than 10,000 since the start of last year.
26/6/2013 – Peabody Energy Corp and Glencore Xstrata will cut around 500 mining jobs in Australia, a company official and trade publication says, as a global glut in coal supply pushes down prices.
20/6/2013: IBM cutting up to 1500 jobs in Australia as cloud computing upsets server market.
