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“Just find a job.”
This is the common trope that many people living on Centrelink payments hear over and over again.
But Social Security recipients, academics and economists say “just finding a job” isn’t always easy.
Here’s why.
Disability and health, a major issue
According to recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)a major barrier to labor market participation was disability or health problem.
Sharon Davis lives with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (MECFS) – a debilitating multi-system illness that severely affects her physical and mental abilities – which gets worse the more she tries to cope.
“It’s like having a hangover, jet lag and a terrible flu all at the same time, every day,” she said.
Sharon Davis says her health means it’s difficult to work many hours in any type of job.(ABC News: Darryl Torpy)
An actress with decades of work behind her in the performing arts, retail and hospitality, the 44-year-old’s health forced her to leave the workforce.
She has been on the JobSeeker payment since mid-2022 and can occasionally undertake a few hours of casual teaching work.
Ms. Davis would like to be able to leave the Social Security system, but said her health is holding her back.
She said that before her illness, she was happy to take on all kinds of jobs.
“I want to work, but it all depends on the type of work and the number of hours and whether it is sustainable for my health and for living,” she said.
Job seeker (single, no children): $53.51 per day
Youth allowance (no children, over 18 years old, living away from parents): $43.05 per day
Payment for single parenthood: $69.30 per day
These payments are below the poverty line commonly used by Henderson, suggesting income less than $87.32 per day puts you in poverty
According to a report from the Australian Council of Social Service According to ACOSS, 41% of job seekers and youth allowance recipients in 2019 were disabled.
Government statistics show around the same number of JobSeeker recipients in September 2023 had partial work capacity, defined as an impairment preventing them from working 30 hours per week.
A tightening of the disability pension has made it harder for people to access the payment, said Elise Klein, a senior lecturer in public policy at the Australian National University.
“A lot of these people find themselves classified as jobseekers and paid the JobSeeker wage, which is much lower, and the assumption is that you are looking for work – but in reality people have very legitimate reasons for not being able to do it,” she said.
Duties of care
Unpaid care also poses a significant barrier to workforce participation, particularly for women, according to ABS data.
Hundreds of thousands of people who carry out caring duties receive Centrelink payments, whether through Carer or Parenting Payments, JobSeeker or another payment.
Even for those with some time to work, it can be difficult to find an employer who can accommodate their family responsibilities.
“Care work helps support the economy and society, and many people who do this work receive Social Security benefits,” Dr. Klein said.
Elise Klein says many job seekers have legitimate reasons why they can’t “just get a job.”(ABC News: Luke Stephenson)
“We think of employment as the only form of work, but there are actually many forms of work, and a lot of it is unpaid. That doesn’t mean these people aren’t contributing at all.”
Location and labor market
Jeff Borland, a professor and economist at the University of Melbourne, said available jobs did not always match the skills, experience and geographic location of unemployed people, and a similar number of vacancies per relationship to job seekers did not mean that these positions could be easily filled.
“The labor market is constantly changing,” Professor Borland said.
“It will always take time for available jobs to be filled, and there may simply be a mismatch between skills, where people live and where the jobs are – this does not nothing to do with motivation.”
An economic downturn, when fewer jobs are created, can create additional challenges, he said.
Mutual obligations
This might be controversial, depending on who you ask.
What are the mutual obligations?
Mutual obligations are activities for people receiving payments such as Jobseeker’s Allowance and Youth Allowance. must be completed to continue receiving support
Recipients earn points by completing various activities, such as short courses and volunteering.
Without a certain number of points each month, payments may be suspended
Mutual obligations are managed through the $7 billion national unemployment services program, Workforce Australia.
Those who support mutual obligations, including successive governments, have supported the system despite criticism.
“There is strong international and Australian evidence that mutual obligations accelerate entry into employment,” the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations wrote in a response to a parliamentary inquiry more early this year.
“(They) also help target income support payments to those who are genuinely unable to support themselves.”
However, others argue that mutual obligations are a stressor that often reduces job search ability.
“There are questions about whether this system… actually helps people find work, as the evidence mounts (it doesn’t),” Dr Klein said.
Research has suggested those with mutual obligations may take longer to find work and spend less time in a job than those without mutual obligations – and if they found work, it was in jobs comparatively “inferior quality”.
When mutual obligations were temporarily lifted at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a survey of JobSeeker beneficiaries indicated that they were able to interact more meaningfully with the labor market.
Not everyone believes that mutual obligations actually help job seekers find meaningful employment.(ABC News: Billy Cooper)
The parliamentary inquiry into Workforce Australia is expected to report by the end of November.
“Our system doesn’t care about things like productivity, labor force participation, economic security, human capital or job security. It literally only cares about depriving people of welfare every time. moment.” Labor MP and Speaker Julian Hill told a conference in October.
“We will need to make recommendations on how to ensure that the overarching goal of mutual obligations is to support participation and not to punish people unnecessarily.”
The ABC has contacted Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth and Jobs Minister Tony Burke for comment.
“Trapped in the system”
Dr. Klein said comments such as “stop being lazy” and “get a job” perpetuate a sense of shame among Social Security recipients.
“There is a world of difference between what the public is fed, particularly by certain segments of the media and political elite, and what the reality of being a job seeker actually is,” he said. -she declared.
Professor Borland said that in his experience, which includes time on the government’s advisory committee on inclusion in employment, the vast majority of people receiving Centrelink payments were highly motivated to work.
“The effort you put into looking for work can be important. But it’s also true that other things matter too,” he said.
He said poverty made it harder to find employment.
“Having the money to be able to pay for things like transportation costs, the cost of clothes that you might need to be able to… look presentable,” he said.
“Research into so-called ‘mental scarcity’ also reveals that when people are financially precarious, their thinking may be focused on how to get by…and this can crowd out the time they would otherwise have spent on a job search.”
Other hidden barriers may include name discrimination, according to research by Monash University and King’s College Londonfinding that ethnic minority candidates were almost half as likely to receive a callback as candidates with English names when applying for a non-executive role.
Postcode discrimination can also have an impact.
Sharon Davis says there is a lot of stigma around Centrelink recipients.(ABC News: Darryl Torpy)
Meanwhile, Sharon Davis is “taking baby steps” toward getting a job while working on her health.
She said she would like to see those who deemed welfare recipients “lazy” try to make a living off the payment themselves.
“When you have such a small amount of money that you end up in poverty, it’s really hard to get out of that cycle, and a lot of people get trapped in the system,” she said.
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