Employment
Today school leavers are competing in a global race for the best jobs. Youth unemployment rates in Australia have reached a crisis point. The general unemployment numbers have jumped to the highest level in more than ten years with a surprise fall in job growth. Some argue that unemployment rates are even higher than officially recognised.
To stay employed we have to foresee change and adapt. In this featured forum on Employment, we explore what changes in the labour markets we are facing and what we can do to lift productivity and compete in the global marketplace. One thing we know is that skills are fundamental. But we need the flexibility and resilience to apply these skills in different contexts and go on learning.
In which fields are the job opportunities and how can we counterbalance the decline in areas like manufacturing and mining? How can we match the ongoing growth in Asian countries, where large amounts of routine work is performed at significantly lower costs? How are new technologies changing the job market and which skills do we need to cultivate that are not easily replaced by technology? And as white-collar jobs in the post-information age are not only about remuneration anymore, where can we find meaning and transcendence in our work?
What are the most pressing issues around Employment according to you? Please contact Svetlana at sstankovic@openforum.com.au and share your ideas and concerns with the Open Forum community.
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Open Forum is a policy discussion website produced by Global Access Partners – Australia’s Institute for Active Policy. We welcome contributions and invite you to submit a blog to the editor and follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Mastadon.
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Tash
November 30, 2014 at 5:36 pm
Creating entrepreneurs is the future of increase employment
In economic hard times, there will be a strong shortage of jobs for many and so a vast of qualified or even so over qualified and skilled people are unable to demonstrate their great abilities in their expertise area of industry. In which, such abilities cannot be wasted but can be utilized for the betterment of self-creativity and contribution for the country's economic condition. But by looking into creating sme's and businesses through Entrepreneurship Education, of which at end results that are creating jobs to help with the country's economic tyrant to withstand a sustainable outlook…can be a much more foreseeable future. Creating entrepreneurs is the changing agent to increasing employment within the nation and global economic conditions.
vietnam recruitment
December 3, 2014 at 10:27 am
Unfilled job – Unskilled labor
Do you know that 3,700,000 jobs won't get filled until we become skilled. The current unemployment rate is 7,3% when the current unfilled job is 2,6%. So why are there still many unfilled jobs when there are plenty of workers available. Jobs require more education than before.
Ayietim
May 7, 2015 at 9:25 am
Finding a Way Out of the Unemployment Imbroglio.
I think the solution lies in the system of education. The system should be adjusted to encourage the recognition and the encouragement of the development of entrepreneurial skills. The focus should shift to creating effective processes for talent development and self employment. Venture capital should be made readily available for those with viable small scale business ideas. The more entrepreneurs the system throws up, the larger the capacity of the employment environment to employ more people.
wrecks501
April 24, 2015 at 5:07 am
Entrepreneurs – Employment – & the future of the Global Economy
Just been reading articles re the Australian Government’s alleged closeness to banks & other financial institutions – also the much publicised scandals of present & recent times to do with corruption amongst our politicians and the like. Link these aspects of our society with the ever changing nature of the global economy, the ever changing edicts on salaries etc and the thought crosses my mind of the importance for self preservation and especially the ‘How to….’ I often note how both directly and indirectly Government legislation impacts upon oneself and gauge my responses accordingly and, accordingly, my responses are frequent !! But back to my original thought and the provocation of this blog. Our world is changing….& I don’t mean just climate change….but that too. The economy and career, work, employment nature of things is changing. Perhaps the younger generations have the capacity to change similarly although I don’t see overwhelming evidence for this. Unless one is in a profession where change does not impact e.g. Law, Medicine, essential type services and the like. Thus how to insure one’s future, to insulate one’s ability to withstand these changes, to have the flexibility to accommodate change, to be able to live, travel and develop an individual affordability despite whatever societal changes impact generally. It is why my partner and I are very grateful for our being part of a relatively new opportunity – a small but ever growing global community of like minded individuals seeking self preservation through self employment – and this opportunity is one of the best. My personal thesis is that my personal power evolves from the power of my bank account and the freedom that a larger bank account provides. And our involvement is our pass to building our bank account and thus personal freedom. We’re close to many who are doing this so effectively right now. It is not an overnight thing, they’ve been at it for several months which is not to deny that some manage success in as many weeks…it’s all very subjective. To learn more about this I invite you to email me….but be warned, it may be life changing – for the better. This training oozes integrity and credibility and is based upon simply leveraging the fact that at any one moment there are two billion – that's 2,000,000,000 people on the Net at any one moment.
viduweb
January 31, 2015 at 5:13 am
IT Sector – A big opportunity
I think that IT sector contains bigger opportunities and these young ones can head towards it, after completing their graduation.
willishundley
February 2, 2015 at 7:43 pm
In these days making money is just plain nessesary
This is more of a way to supplement income and only the dedicated few can make a living in it.
alexandriakate
March 27, 2015 at 11:19 pm
Better Employment and Social Outcomes – Get ‘stuck’ into it!
“If you’re sick of being stuck, maybe it’s time to get stuck into the right job”. This statement flashed at me as I drove home one afternoon in South-West Brisbane. This new bus stop advertisement, a government initiative, pictured a middle-aged man with a messy beard, dirty face and tired eyes –what looked to me like a homeless man. Just days before, I read A New System for Better Employment and Social Outcomes (2014). The advertisement, the icing on the cake to this new policy puts into perspective for me the attitude of our government. ‘Just do it!’ – a common phrase used by those who can. ‘If you don’t like being poor, just get a job!’
Does our whole community view unemployment as a decision of laziness? Thankfully, no. At after school care recently, I was discussing with some children about helping people find employment. One child mentioned homelessness and another inquired, ‘but how can you get a homeless person a job if they don’t have a home?’‘That’s exactly the way we should all be thinking’, I replied. This boy from a private school and privileged family, at a young age understands what our government does not – it is not possible for a homeless person to just get a job. And that’s exactly how we should all be thinking. It took a 10-year-old boy who had never heard of social work to give me hope that we have an emerging generation who thinks more clearly about equality and human rights. Without resources, people cannot just get out of poverty, especially if their benefits are cut while the rich get richer. The policy seems to imply that welfare dependency is the most major disincentive to work. However, research has shown us for many years now that lack of motivation is not the only factor for long-term unemployment. There are other factors that impact long-term welfare dependency such as mental illness, illiteracy, homelessness and chronic ill-health. Many factors contributing to unemployment are actually beyond the individual’s control. Still, policy does not reflect these impacts. The widespread social construction of unemployment and welfare dependency places negative stigma on innocent people who do not enjoy the luxuries other Australians do. Stating there is a ‘risk’ of long-term income support dependence constructs people with long-term mental health problems or homelessness in a negative light, as if requiring help over long periods of time makes them a nuisance to our society. Another statement… People who can work should work. But where are these jobs? A question finally addressed in page 26 of the policy’s Executive Summary, the current shortage of jobs is acknowledged, stating that jobs will increase up until 2018. Yet this tiny paragraph in a large policy focusing on the ‘problem’ of welfare dependency and how to fix it, does little to absolve the contribution to negative stigma this policy makes. I am as confused as the boy at afterschool care as to how this is supposed to work. Our government has a long way to go if their policies still fail to reflect research that is over 7 years old. Perhaps they should take guidance from the children, who seem to understand more about social inclusion than they do.
runjase
June 10, 2015 at 3:30 am
Happy staff environment
Its hard to create “the perfect work environment” however from past experiences i can offer some simple steps. Having a happy work culture is great for any business, people are more interested to turn up Monday morning, sick days may be reduced, your team will be more productive and that is money in your bank.
We had a scenario where my staff really didn’t get along to well. They put on a brave face at work because they had too but i could tell and sometimes see the knives being thrown.. It was time for me to do something. Although i only have a small team of 6 they spend quite a lot of time together in and out of the office but always in the work environment. So i wanted to break the mould a bit! I decided to do our first ever team building activity and i called http://www.totalteambuilding.com.au. They designed a great outdoor event that had my team working as one towards the one goal. It broke down the barriers i needed to. We went to dinner after and Monday it was like i had new staff.. They were laughing and chatting (not To Much) about the event it was nice to see. That has been two weeks now so lets see how long it lasts.
Runjase
lukedowning
June 28, 2015 at 1:50 am
Some issues in the state of the economy
Having worked extensively in HR / Recruitment / Employment Services, there are a couple of stress points that I have noticed during my time, in the way we, as a society, handle employment that may be helpful to this discussion.
* communications technology tends to be used to restrict effective, valuable communications, not enhance it.
* communications technology, when it fails, creates huge backlogs of work that overwhelm processes and people, and attendant time pressures negate effective recovery of valuable information.
* workplace law is very complex and arcane, and unavoidably of an adversarial nature. Due to this, the use of equity and diversity principles in performance management issues tends to be weighted towards accommodating legal and time pressures, and thus not universally applied in performance resolution, OH&S, and risk management practices. The result tends to be punishing those who are diligent in their work duties, and rewarding those who performance management has identified as less-than-diligent. This makes improvements in productivity very difficult – and potentially an institutional OH&S risk.
* having worked extensively with job seekers navigating the Job Services Australia program, JSA’s contract relationship with the Dept of Workplace Relations (DEWR) tends to put JSA ESP employees at the frontline level in a position of being contract administrators for DEWR, not case workers – thus attendant time pressures make it extremely difficult to assist job seekers rejoining the workforce.
* JSA ESPs often also have comms technology systems that collapse under the data they are expected to store and retrieve. This tends to be a problem however for many enterprises which are effectively HR practices, as assessing value of information is seconded to KPIs which emphasise metrics of input – which may be a response to legal pressures, time pressures, management pressures. The data collected and stored is not able to be transformed into valuable employment information in a timely fashion.
* the emphasis on the relationship between data, metrics, and KPIs, coupled with pressures on employment services personnel, combine to create intergenerational unemployment based on urban geography, as personnel grapple focus on cases that do not affect their KPIs adversely, and thus their own employment. People who therefore need a little extra help navigating the JSA and employment system in a digitised economy, are effectively left to fend for themselves.
Purely an industry grunt’s view, but carefully considered over a considerable period of time. 🙂
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September 7, 2015 at 4:25 am
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Will let the site do the rest of the talking, have a look through and if you have any question don’t hesitate to reply.
The site again is : http://www.medhire.com.au
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