What to make of online employment services?

Amid debate about Points-based activation @simonecasey explores the extent it changes what had already been happening the realm of the digital transformation of employment services.

There is no doubt the Workforce Australia is the biggest change to employment services since privatisation in 1998. It was based on a review and trial process that extended over 5 years, the intention is to redistribute employment service resources so that they are better targeted at people who actually need support.

As most people will know by now, this resulted in major systems changes so that people who are most likely to find a job easily will use the Online Employment Services part of Workforce Australia. Others will have been transferred to a Workforce Australia provider, which could be the same provider they had in jobactive, but is most likely to be a new one because there has been a significant shakeup of the employment services market.

As I noted in the blog prior to this, Australia’s approach to employment services had a Workfare orientation, and this has led to excessive forms of welfare surveillance and tree-shaking activities. My research has shown that employment services have been dominated by coercion where threat of payment suspension caused people to live in fear of their economic security, and onerous activities like Work for the Dole were used to punish people who could not get jobs quickly. Further, the employment services system was plagued by problems of poor service quality and workforce issues that arose because of privatisation.

So Workforce Australia has its roots in Workfare, and this is perhaps the most significant reason why the Points-based Activation system (PBAS), that is intended to replace the existing, inflexible Job Search target of 20 applications per month, needs more scrutiny. However, PBAS is not the only change to the way in which compliance with ‘mutual obligations’ is surveilled. I have written before about how the shift to self-service in employment services might be conceived as a form of digital dole parole that commenced with the introduction of the Targeted Compliance Framework (TCF) in 2018.

The shift to the TCF and digital welfare surveillance was in fact a shift to the administration of welfare conditionality through cost-saving and efficiency mechanisms. As Paul Henman recently wrote this is part of a broader shift in e-government involving complex entanglement of conditional social policy and a drive for efficiency, cost-cutting, staff-savings, consistency of decisions, and reducing errors.

Of course, the New Employment Service model underpinning Workforce Australia  is a definite move in that direction, where there has been significant resources invested into IT systems, and not just into services.  Workforce Australia will involve a hybrid of digital only, or face-to-face services, both of which will involve an increased emphasis on digital interfaces.

To date, employment services digitisation has progressed on a number of fronts. Access to services has been differentiated by the use of algorthimic methods, and decision making has been automated to improve standardisation – through the use of business rules that govern transactions.  Business rules often define processes – by dictating decision tree paths  - with rules like  if x=y then so and but. These systems also use scripts and prompts for help, sometimes contextualsied, and can be backed up by online communities of practice and help centres.

Further, employment services data have long been used for prediction, evaluation and justification of policy and associated with this are the uses of this data for market stewardship and regulation - for example as the data on outcomes had informed the star ratings system and the organisations that have been successful in gaining contracts during employment services procurements.

For over a decade there has been an increasing use of Apps and online self-service in e-government, and these have increasingly become mandatory such as was seen with the Targeted Compliance Framework. In this respect street-level workers have increasingly become digital facilitators, who have become repsonsible for the implementation of digital transformation initiatives, and by determining a person’s capability and access to devices and data. Workforce Australia extends the role employment services workers play in assessing digital capability and access, to enrol people in Points-based Activation, and to refer them to undertake training so that they can become digitally literate if they are not already.

In fact, this ‘digital facilitator’ role is a notable shift because the ‘help‘ provided by employment services is supposed to be related to job and training referral, employment preparation and employability skills. As described by scholars past, there is a line that is crossed when help becomes hassle, and this relates to the way in which power is wielded in the employment services relationship.

So it is important to analyse online employment services in terms of help and hassle and the forms of power that will be present in online interactions.

Firstly, in relation to help, in broad terms the digital interfaces designed to help people look for work include job search platforms, resume building applications, and job matching enhanced by AI and nudge features. Such applications are not only the preserve of employment services, they are commonly used in recruitment and commercial job advertising websites. Then there is the use of online training for employability skills and other forms of vocational education and training.

Hassle enters the equation when disincentives are used such as the system of payment suspensions and penalties that have been part of the job seeker compliance system for many years. The most significant shift to digital welfare surveillance happened when the Targeted Compliance Framework shifted job seeker compliance reporting and decision making online via the jobseeker App and Dashboard on MyGov.

The most recent shift in digital welfare surveillance is the Points-based Activations system (PBAS). It is therefore possible to reflect on the ways that the PBAS turns participation in employment-related activity from a system of help into a system of surveillance. This is because all the activities that had been in the jobs plan to prepare for work or are related to employment now become activities that are reportable under the PBAS system. The activities are given a points value, which is reported on the Workforce Australia job seeker App or dashboard on Mygov. The activity is materially transferred into an electronic record, with a digitised value determined by policy maker’s decisions as to it’s usefulness for the individual’s employability.

This digitisation of the value of job search activity was in fact already in place under the old arrangement for reporting job search requirements, but the Points system broadens it because policy makers determine the relative value of the points for other forms of activity. Time is now spent undertaking the activity itself as well as a requirement to report completion of the activity. While this activity reporting sounds more onerous, it is intended to replace the job search target of 20 job applications per month, with a system that provides recognition of the value of other forms of employment preparation or training, and indeed employment itself.

So how concerned about PBAS should we be? Really only as concerned as we might be with other aspects of the digitisation of welfare surveillance where there are many risks relating to automated decisions and digitization and the ways in which power is wielded in these relationships. Scrutiny should be applied to the potential for bias in policy maker decisions on points values, the extent of welfare surveillance that is justifiable and it’s role in actually helping people find employment, particularly while withholding welfare payments for non-compliance with mutual obligation requirements continues. There are other issues relating to the forms of power and how it is used, that require scrutiny including the role that employment services workers play as digital facilitators, the capture and use of human data and the forms it will be used for prediction of risks and to determine service eligibility, alongside the issues with digital access for people on low incomes.

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