Federal government to confirm plans to expand work for the dole to 49 year olds

AUSTRALIANS who are under 50 and out of work will be forced to work for the dole from July.

The move comes as part of an overhaul of the job placement system designed to cut red tape and put an end to wasteful taxpayer subsidised training that doesn’t lead to work.

Currently, only jobseekers aged from 18 to 30 who live in 18 trial sites across Australia are required to undertake compulsory work for the dole.

From July, the scheme will be expanded nationally and take in all job seekers up to the age of 49.

The federal government is poised to announce the results of tender process for its revamped $5.1 billion job services system, which will include a confirmation of the new requirements job seekers will have to meet from July this year.

The new mutual obligation requirements will see Australians under 50 having to undertake work for the dole programs for 15 hours a week, for six months of every year they remain unemployed.

Unemployed people under the age of 30 will have to do 25 hours of work for the dole a week, and all job seekers will have to apply for 20 jobs a month — half of what the government initially proposed when it released the details of tender process this time last year and was forced into a back down.

Assistant Minister for Employment Luke Hartsuyker, who is expected to unveil the companies and organisations who won government contracts to place jobseekers in work next week, said the job placement system needed an overhaul because it was mired in red-tape.

“Employment providers had become tied up with endless paperwork — providers told me how they spent more than 50 per cent of their time filling in forms,” Mr Hartsuyker told News Corp.

“Job seekers complained of completing endless amounts of training but with no job opportunities; one job seeker told me he could have wallpapered a room with all the certificates he had.”

It is understood the new model will provide financial incentives for job service providers to place people in real jobs — not just send them to training courses, or process job application forms.

News Corp Australia understands job providers will receive outcome payments after placing unemployed people in work for 4, then 12, and then 26 weeks.

Job service providers will be offered 5 year contracts in a move designed to provide greater consistency for the employment services sector, and providers working in regional areas will receive additional payments to recognise the difficulties of placing job seekers in work outside the major cities.

Laws passed last year designed to crack down job seekers who miss compulsory interviews with their job placement provider, will also take effect from July, and will see welfare payments suspended and not back-paid for failing to attend regular meetings without a reasonable excuse.

In the last financial year alone, about 4.5 million compulsory appointments were missed by jobseekers.