More opportunities for job seekers online

The Coalition Government is giving more job seekers the opportunity to look for work through the Government’s online services by expanding the Online Employment Services Trial.

Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations, the Hon Kelly O’Dwyer MP, said the Government will increase the total participants in the trial by almost 40,000, expanding on the 10,000 job seekers which the Government previously announced would participate from 1 July 2018 to 30 June 2020.

"The Coalition Government is giving more job seekers the opportunity to look for work using our online services,” Minister 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
• test the effectiveness of online monitoring of mutual obligation requirements and compliance systems.

Early results show that Trial participants commence with servicing more quickly than job seekers commencing with face-to-face services and are satisfied with the service they are receiving. 

"While it is early days, we are seeing some positive results through the online trial since it started in July this year,” Minister O’Dwyer said.

"But 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.”

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 results of the online trial will also be considered as part of that process.