LA EIC - Disadvantaged Jobseekers Inquiry Submission no. 32 Received: 30 July 2019

Submission to Inquiry into Sustainable Employment For Disadvantaged Job Seekers

July 2019

Brimbank City Council

Brimbank City Council submission to Inquiry into Sustainable Employment For Disadvantaged Job Seekers

Preamble This submission has been prepared by officers on behalf of Brimbank City Council. The information provided does not formally represent the position of Council; however it is based on adopted policies, plans and programs that are informed by research and consultation.

Overview City of Brimbank – demographic snapshot1

 Area – 123 square kilometres  Population – 202,863 (estimated resident population, June 2016)  Males – 50.0%  Females – 50.0%  Residents aged under 18 years – 22.1%  Residents aged between 18 and 59 years – 58.9%  Residents aged 60 years and over – 19.0%  Indigenous population – 816  Residents who speak a non-English language at home – 58.4%  Median house price for 2016 – $495,092

In March 2019, 106,300 Brimbank residents were in the labour force, and 9,111 of them were unemployed, representing 8.6% of the labour force.

Unemployment in Brimbank has been higher than the rate for Victoria and Western metro region municipalities since March 2016. Moreover there are several Brimbank suburbs which are well above the municipal average, with unemployment rates in excess of 15% (see Figure below).

1 ABS Census 2016. Brimbank City Council – Submission to Inquiry into Sustainable Employment for Disadvantaged Jobseekers 1

This indicates that it will not be sufficient for State or Federal Governments to rely on general economic improvement or recovery to address disadvantage in Brimbank. More locally focussed measures are needed.

The greatest opportunity for turning around unemployment in Brimbank lies in the Melbourne Airport Rail Link (MARL). This is a $10 billion plus project, and to take the route from the CBD to Tullamarine Airport through Sunshine, with a stop at Sunshine Station, will generate thousands of jobs, both in the construction of the project, and in the additional activity which will come to Sunshine in its wake.

Response to Terms of Reference The social and economic benefits of seeking to place disadvantaged jobseekers into sustainable employment

From our experience we have seen:  Sustainable employment providing stability, security, future planning and increased independence.  A reduction of people’s reliance on Centrelink and other services to get through the week

The jobseekers who may be considered as being ‘disadvantaged’ in the labour market and types of barriers to employment they may face

Who are the ‘disadvantaged’?

 Council recently conducted a workshop where communities of discouraged learners were identified by Brimbank community organisations and learning providers in the context of seeking better educational and employment outcomes: o Pacific island communities

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o Asylum seekers o People with a disability o Adults looking to retrain o CALD groups o Indigenous and Torres Strait Islanders o People with low literacy o Newly arrive migrants o Young people disengaged from education o Those in the youth justice system o Returning to work parents o Seniors o People in ‘out of home care’  According to the Brimbank Youth Jobs Strategy literature review, young people looking for work or not in the labour force o have a higher likelihood of both parents being born overseas. o tend to be located in high unemployment hotspots that have lower access to infrastructure such as public transport and WIFI. o Brimbank’s youth unemployment hotspots are Albion, Albanvale, Derrimut, Kings Park, St Albans (east). Brimbank’s youth disengagement (not in education or employment) hotspots are Albion, Albanvale, Ardeer, Kings Park and St Albans (east). o Brimbank has significantly higher youth unemployment and disengagement rates compared to the Greater Melbourne average. However unemployment is not experienced equally by all young people. o While all young people in Brimbank are facing challenges related to navigating new career pathways in the future of work, some young people have the compounding effect of facing several or all of the barriers listed such as: . people with disability . First Nation Australians . those with caring responsibility . young people from low socioeconomic backgrounds . those from CALD backgrounds and . those without year 12 attainment

What are the barriers?

 Research and engagement activities undertaken by Council reveal a clear but complex and interrelated set of factors contributing to Brimbank’s high and growing youth employment.  Disconnect between employers and employees o Young people unaware of employers’ expectations o Employers unaware of how to recruit and retain young people o Getting through the recruitment process – complex, not user friendly, not flexible, relies on levels of English and understanding of application processes o Complex personal issues which could affect performance, reliability and skills.  Individual factors to unemployment are drug and alcohol abuse and unstable housing.  Systematic abuse, lack of trust in the system,  The lack of networks and connections  Lack of jobs available  Gaps in education, updating skills and cost of updating skills  Flexible updating/upskilling education/training opportunities – for example education with child care, using and acknowledging prior knowledge and informal skills and training  Recognising skills of highly skilled newly arrived migrants - underemployment  Racism and judgement

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How well current efforts, programs or activities meet the needs of disadvantaged jobseekers and/or employers looking for workers, and potential improvements

While there are many courses and employment programs in Brimbank:

 Programs need to be more flexible and less driven by criteria that is tied to funding in order to cater for the individual and their needs  More support to connect jobseekers to the next step – work experience, placements  More support in the workplace – mentoring, wraparound  More support for ‘good’ employers to understand and respond to challenges ‘disadvantaged’ job seekers experience  Meaningful work - Listening to jobseekers career and work desires – not pushing them into courses that are approved by organisations and are a requirement of Centrelink etc  More bilingual opportunities in larger companies  Encourage a more collaborative municipality-wide framework where stakeholders do not ‘compete’ for clients and program dollars but collaborate and refer in a ‘person centric’ approach.  In Brimbank there is a supply-side bias (work ready, resume writing programs) to ‘solving’ youth unemployment and neglecting to engage with the structural issues underpinning youth unemployment. Overwhelming ‘programmatic response’, lack of coherent policy framework focussing on structural issues. Limited to no involvement of young people in program design.  Seek the voices of ‘job-seekers’ without program agenda  Quality and objective career/job advice in community accessible centres. For example Victorian Skills and Jobs Centre being placed in local government centres such as Brimbank Learning Futures. Local government contributes resources such as interpreters and community learning outreach officers – this is working well

Outcomes of effort to encourage greater labour participation of disadvantaged jobseekers (not applicable for learning unit)

Council undertakes a number of initiatives in line with the themes of Business Development and Innovation – ‘A city that grows local business’ and Social and Economic Participation – ‘A city that invests in its people’ provided in the Brimbank Economic Development Strategy 2016 – 2020 and associated Brimbank Economic Development Five Year Implementation Plan 2017 - 21.

The initiatives have broader focus than ‘disadvantaged jobseekers’ and include:

 Delivery of a Business Development Program to build business capacity, which has been made available to young people. The Program also includes CUL_TIV_VATE which is aims to accelerate the process of finding a business idea, developing it, and scaling the business into a sustainable model, and is also targeted to young people  Delivery of the Melbourne West Jobs Fair on behalf of the Federal Government (a one off event funded by the Federal Government) to support displaced automotive employees, however, was open to all interested jobseekers  Delivery of Brimbank Joblink, a one stop jobs portal where employers can advertise, and local jobseekers can search for local employment. Brimbank Joblink is promoted online, and at business and networking events  Support for the Brimbank Melton Local Learning Employment Network and local careers expos.  Education and training needs to support disadvantaged job seekers transitioning into work  Increased and more innovative structured workplace learning (SWL) opportunities o Add transition elements to the tail end of courses as a subject, have a transition and preparation for work subject embedded in courses such as: o Understanding employer expectations o Different work context/experience tasters

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 Enable jobseekers to value and advocate own skills and knowledge acquired though informal learning. No charge ‘Course in Informal Learning’.  Encourage a more collaborative municipality-wide framework where learning providers do not ‘compete’ for clients and program dollars but collaborate and refer in a ‘person centric’ approach.  Educate employers on some of the complexity some marginalised jobseekers may bring to their new place of work – connect to service providers who are experts in this area  Local skills sector and employers need better understanding of how to attract young people to training in sectors that are experiencing skills shortages and future growth in Brimbank  Work literacy  Empower jobseekers in selecting learning options such as: o Increase awareness of options o Increase awareness of provider types o Bust education system myths o Match interest o Enable awareness of current competencies, transferable skills etc o Easy to understand criteria on what to look for o Provide economic development insight for local area  To ensure local major projects use local workforce, learning providers must align their selection of courses with predicted skills needs. Thorough economic and educational research is required for accurate skills needs modelling.

Interstate and overseas best practice models that could be implemented in Victoria

 Best practice case studies fall under the following categories: Social procurement, supply and demand side recruitment platforms/ policies, culturally responsive and strengths based approaches.  Human Centred Design  Bladerunners, Canada: Developing skills and providing direct work experience for First Nations young people through targeted and culturally safe work placements.  Work 180, Australia, UK and New Zealand: recruitment platform for women and women friendly employers. It is a register of employers who are actively seeking to provide a women friendly work environment that will attract and retain women.  Impact Hiring, USA: a game based platform that predicts on the job performance to find entry level workers. 600 low income young people not currently employed or enrolled in school played the Knack mobile games with incredible results. 83% scored at or above the level of the company’s average performers for one or more jobs. This shows that there are other barriers outside of aptitude that are preventing young people from moving from application stage to successful employment.  Youth Guarantee and Youth Employment Initiative, European Union: A political commitment to give every young person a good quality offer of employment, continuous education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within a period of four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education. During this period unemployment dropped faster for the population of young people than for the adult population across the EU.  Refugee client, Australia: Online platform matching skilled employees from refugee backgrounds with employers  Generation, India and now global: Generation is a recruitment platform that connects young people with jobs and provides short training boot camps, support and a community whilst in the workplace. This has a return of investment mechanism for both employers and students.

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