Brotherhood of St Laurence lunchtime research seminar

 
In 1998, Mark Considine surveyed frontline staff working in Australia’s employment sector. At that time Australian employment services had been partially privatised, signalling an end to the public monopoly of welfare services. Considine concluded that the 1998 survey results showed signs of specialisation, flexibility, and networking on the part of frontline employment services staff. In 2008, Mark Considine, Jenny Lewis and Siobhan O’Sullivan asked Australian employment services professionals to complete the same survey. By 2008, Australia’s employment sector had been fully privatised. This seminar will present results from the two surveys, along with responses from recent interviews. They show that in the ten years between surveys there was a marked increase in the level of routinisation and standardisation reported by frontline staff. They also show that by the end of Job Network there was little discernable difference between the service offered by for-profit and not-for-profit agencies. In conclusion, some of the possible causes of the observed increases in routinisation and standardisation in the sector will be discussed.
 
Dr Siobhan O’Sullivan is a Research Fellow with the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne where she specialises in the welfare state, especially the delivery of employment services. For the last two years Siobhan has been working with Mark Considine and Jenny Lewis on an ARC funded project called ‘Activating States’.