Government to offer more opportunities for job seekers online

The government earlier announced that 10,000 people would participate in the trial from 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2020, but has now decided to grow this number significantly, emphasising the need for a greater use of advanced online technologies in employment.

The expansion comes as the government released a report by an independent Employment Services Expert Advisory Panel, providing recommendations to government to consider as it prepares to establish employment services beyond 2020.

The report highlights that technology is important in connecting job seekers with services, and enables resources to be better directed to those job seekers with greater needs.

"The Coalition government is giving more job seekers the opportunity to look for work using our online services,” Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations Kelly O’Dwyer said.

"Already we have seen more than 1.2 million job placements through jobactive since July 2015, but we want to see even more Australians in work. The more people we can get off welfare and into work the better.”

The trial aims to:

• develop an online service platform to allow job seekers to self-service and take personal responsibility for finding work;

• test whether eligible job seekers can self-service effectively using online services; and

• test the effectiveness of online monitoring of mutual obligation requirements and compliance systems.

Positive feedback 

While it is early days, Ms O’Dwyer noted that positive results have been received through the online trial since it started in July this year.

"We know that some job seekers will still need face-to-face assistance and that job services providers will continue to have a critical role to play in delivering this assistance,” she said.