The Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/9912/21/text/national11.html OECD doubts benefits of dole work for jobless Date: 21/12/99 By MATT WADE Australia's work-for-the-dole scheme impeded unemployed people from gaining work or acquiring skills which made them attractive to employers, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has found. In its latest report on Australia, released last night, the OECD said the scheme, expanded by the Federal Government in this year's Budget, could affect "the integration of the unemployed into gainful work". The Government increased spending on the scheme by $139 million in the Budget. It has created an extra 65,000 work-for-the dole places this financial year. The OECD report notes the requirement that work-for-the-dole jobs must not compete with paid employment in the regular labour market. As a result, unskilled jobs with little potential for training are favoured by the program. When it was first introduced in 1997, the scheme targeted job seekers aged 18-24 who had been unemployed for more than six months and required them to work 24-30 hours per fortnight for six months. The program was expanded earlier this year to include school leavers who had not found work for three months and to 25- to 34-year-olds who had received unemployment benefits for 12 months. The Opposition spokesman on employment and training, Mr Lindsay Tanner, said: "The fundamental weakness of work for the dole is its inadequate provision for training, and the OECD assessment confirms that people with insufficient skills are not receiving adequate training assistance from the Howard Government." The OECD also said more should be done for young school leavers who face the greatest risk of ending up in dead-end jobs. "Many early school leavers remain at considerable risk of being locked into marginal labour market activities that may not lead to better skills and employment prospects," the report said. It also noted the rate of early school leavers was too high and additional measures were required to make school curriculums relevant to those at risk of leaving early. The report recommended the broader educational system co-operate more effectively with vocational training programs such as TAFE. The OECD confirmed Australia's good economic performance, noting the resilience of the economy in the face of the Asian economic crisis last year. The report forecast growth to continue at 3-4 per cent with unemployment to fall to 6.5 per cent by 2001. However, the report warns that the introduction of the GST could kick off a sustained higher level of inflation and not simply cause a one-off price rise as predicted by the Government. The OECD identified two potential threats to Australia's long period of economic growth: a stockmarket crash in the US and the possible evaporation of the Asian economic recovery. The OECD report lent support to the Government's so called "second" and "third wave" industrial relations reforms, including further simplifying award conditions and using the corporations powers to create a unified industrial relations framework. This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. ************************************************************************* This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
