ACOSS Policy Webinar Series: Reducing long-term unemployment

For years, Australian governments have under-invested in impactful employment services, and instead have over-invested in compliance systems and penalties affecting people on unemployment payments. We know recessions cast long shadows, and it will be hard to reduce unemployment much further when over 800,000 people (three quarters of those on unemployment payments) are unemployed long-term*.

Once people have been unemployed for a long time, it’s harder to break back into paid work. As well as having a gap in their resume, many people on unemployment payments face barriers to employment such as discrimination on the basis of age or race, caring roles, or living in a region with high unemployment.

This webinar will explore:

• New research and data on long-term unemployment, its causes, and who is affected
• What the federal government can do to reduce it, starting with ‘’full employment’’ policies to generate jobs, and including employment programs that give people a better chance of picking up the jobs available

Join us as we discuss key findings of ACOSS’s Faces of Unemployment 2021 report, which provides a snapshot of people on unemployment payments and the jobs and employment services available to them. This report focuses on long-term unemployment.

We will hear from people directly impacted, research partners, and experts on policies to strengthen employment and the government’s ‘’New Employment Services’’ due to start next year.

Speakers include (more to be announced in the coming weeks):

• Sandra Elhelw Wright, Chief Executive Officer, Settlement Council of Australia
• A presentation from Dr Peter Davidson, Principal Advisor, ACOSS

*Over 12 months – measured in terms of long-term receipt of unemployment payment