What should we make of Workforce Australia?

As regular readers of these blogs know I have contributed my views on the Australian employment services system based on my academic research, as a ‘job seeker’ and as a policy advisor, and lately I have have increasingly been interested in the digitisation of employment services. As this week’s blog moderator I have taken the liberty to reflect on what the shift to Workforce Australia might mean for scholarship in this area, particularly given all the interest there has been in how it changes the way in which people report compliance with mutual obligation requirements, through a new system called Points-Based Activation.

So firstly I think there is a need to acknowledge the perspectives of academics and related public policy thinkers in this area which have tended to explore the effects of privatized employment services in the context of the broad social and economic transformation often referred to as neoliberalism.  In this respect there are multiple perspectives from which to observe the changes to employment services.

From the perspective of political economy, employment services are sometimes situated as a commodifying tool for a labour market that often employs people on exploitative terms. This is the ‘Workfare’ perspective which is used to explain why the conditions people experience while receiving unemployment benefits are designed to deter them from remaining on payments, and if they do to treat them badly. Workfare is often associated with Australian programs like Work for the Dole but it is also associated with maintaining low rates of social security payments.

The experiences of Workfare have been documented in studies that have shown that employment services have been coercive and harmful, not just from the perspective of the low-paid work it often funnels them into, but because of the poor quality of the services they have received.

Then there are the public policy perspectives that have observed that privatization to date, has not brought with it the innovation or quality that was originally intended. Rather, in some people’s view, ‘contracting’ has been used for cost minimization and arms-length administration of more disciplinary social policy. The findings of analysis in this vein has a wide range of implications for all kinds of privatization and marketisation projects especially in the human services. Here, might also sit perspectives on administrative and social security law which have drawn attention to how arms-length administration through privatized contractors has undermined the access and review rights of citizens.

There is also scholarly interest in digitization of all kind of services, not just government or social services. Such digital transformations have been with us for many years now and not all need to be treated with alarm - as in many cases they result in improvements in access to information and services - oh and Netflix. Nevertheless, there are a range of issues and disciplines from which to observe these transitions especially by taking in the other critical perspectives on the neo-liberalisation of government services. Some examples of these include changes in the subjective experience of governance, of welfare surveillance, transparency of information use and big data, as well as a shift towards service rationing and cost-efficiency, and access to administrative justice.

Finally, there are more normative perspectives emanating from within a public policy development framework which is the more normative frame that most policy work proceeds within. By this I mean, normative policy appraisal using data on outcomes and program efficiency, cost benefit of spending and so on to inform policy development. Here I might also include perspectives grounded in organizational and institutional theory about how make services more human focused while being outsourced, including appraisal of public policy novelties such New Public Management and public choice theory, nudge and behavioural science.

This is by no means a definitive list but I outline these perspectives with view to reflecting on what to make of Workforce Australia.  

Overall, I’d suggest that this scholarship to date has informed new Workforce Australia model. I say this because these perspectives have informed the re-marketisation of employment services and its relationship to the governance of unemployment and/or welfare governance. That is not to say that the strictures and constraints of the previous employment model services have vanished, rather that they have undergone a transformation, and one that needs to be properly observed and understood.

This is more or less a starting point for thinking about the implications of the shift to Workforce Australia from the perspective of scholarship in this area. As it is clear that we are not likely to see a radical shift from the underlying logic of neoliberalism that has informed welfare reform in general, at least we now have the opportunity to observe this new model with a refreshed view.

I will reflect on this more in a future post I plan later this week.

About the author:

Simone Casey is a Resarch Associate at RMIT and a Senior Policy Advisor – Employment, and previously held a variety of roles in policy advocacy, research and communications where in the employment services and welfare sectors. Simone holds a PhD in employment services is an expert on marketisation, welfare conditionality, labour market program design, unemployment and related social security topics. Her campaigns and reports are underwritten by rigorous analysis and the use of up-to-date evidence and arguments.

Moderated by @simonecasey