Abbott’s forced job applications hurt the unemployed

Posted by Dr Glyn Brokensha | August - 4 - 2014 | 0 Comment

looksWrongIsRightThe superficially attractive proposals from the Abbott Government around work-for-the-dole provisions have come in for some serious criticisms in the past few days since their release.

In case you’ve been in suspended animation and missed it, one of the key proposals whose intention is to get job seekers busy, busy, busy making applications, is that unemployment benefit should be contingent upon recipients making no less than 40 job applications per month.  That’s about two a day for each working day.

Abbott’s forced job applications hurt the unemployed … let’s do some sums…

40 applications per month

x

728,500 unemployed persons [1]

= 29,140,000 additional applications per month

Now, job vacancies are 146,100 [2],  making…

29,140,000 new applications

÷

146,100 possible jobs

= 199.45 additional job applications for every job

That’s 200 additional applications for every job?

Actually, I doubt it.  It’s more like 2,000 additional applications for some jobs.  For however limited the oversight on the type of job applied for, I’d bet my boots that not too many applications for neurosurgeons, litigation lawyers or even dental hygienists will be made as part of this program.

More likely it will be entry-level and low-skilled jobs that will bear the brunt.  And there is no shortage of applicants for those already, is there!

No wonder the Business Council of Australia had a small pink fit [here] making an unusual alliance with welfare groups, training organisations and left-of-centre politicians in their condemnation.

My first reaction of course was, “stay calm and think of Expr3ss!” for our customers have the perfect mechanism for coping with this deluge… for quickly screening out forced-application junk.  Regardless of how many spurious, “tick-the-box” applications (thanks Senator Abetz) come through, they will easily be able to sift them out.

Then I began to think of this problem from the other side… from the perspective of the unemployed person genuinely seeking work (and perhaps there are more of those than the political rhetoric would have us believe).  What unintended consequences might occur as a result of this forced-application régime?

Genuine job-seekers are going to be massively diluted by a deluge of forced-application box-ticks, that’s what.

How will someone really intent on gaining or regaining employment fare when the “signal-to-noise ratio” of genuine to forced applications drowns them out?  How will they stand out from the noise?  How many of the hundreds (thousands?) of resumes will ever get more than the all-too-common cursory “eight second glance”?

Here at Expr3ss! we just love the many, many stories that we hear of what might be called the “looks wrong / is right” applicants… the people who but for the speed and objectivity of Expr3ss! would never get beyond that cursory flick into the waste pile.  People who deserve more consideration than traditional recruitment practices allow.

The magic thing about Expr3ss!, as our thousands of users re-discover very day is that these “looks wrong / is right” people are given proper and objective consideration.  When this results in the appointment of someone who otherwise might have remained unconsidered and still unemployed … and it does … we rejoice for them … and that makes us feel good too.

Want to see some success stories?  Check out the video…

Expr3ss! Applicants Speak from Expr3ss! on Vimeo.

 

Thanks for dropping by…

 

[1] http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/6202.0

[2] http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/6354.0