Australian JobSeekers are applying for jobs they are wildly unqualified for just to tick off “farcical” requirements in a bid to get their welfare payment.
Retail workers applying for CEO jobs in JobSeeker ‘scam’
Australian JobSeekers are applying for jobs they are wildly unqualified for just to tick off “farcical” requirements in a bid to get their welfare payment. Now one recruiter is calling for the system to change.
Underqualified Australians are applying for executive jobs just to tick off JobSeeker requirements and get their welfare payment with experts warning the government the system is not working.
Superior People Recruitment’s founder Graham Wynn has called for an urgent overhaul of how JobSeeker payments are handled after receiving hundreds of applications from people for jobs they have no skills or experience for.
It comes as One Nation Senator Pauline Hanson blasted claims immigration was necessary to fill the skills shortage, calling on the Albanese government to do more to ensure Australian job hunters were applying for appropriate jobs.
Mr Wynn said the punitive “mutual obligation system” which forces job hunters to apply for a set number of applications per week or forgo their welfare payments is pushing people to apply for jobs they will never get.
“People apply for jobs they don’t have the skills or experience for. I got one yesterday for a CEO and the person had only worked doing retail at Kmart,” he said.
“Part of the problem is the mutual obligation. It’s a farcical system and it forces people to apply for jobs they don’t have experience for.”
Mr Wynn said other applications he had seen included people who had six months experience as a receptionist applying to become an office manager looking after 20 staff
The latest employment figures showed an unemployment rate of 3.7 per cent.
A parliamentary inquiry released in November last year also found the mutual obligation system was “killing unemployed people’s motivation” and causing employers to be “flooded with inappropriate application”.
Mr Wynn said in his experience the government was not adequately monitoring the jobs people are applying for.
“If we are going to have this system it should be better monitored. That’s why we get silly applications as they are forced to do it. If you’re going to force it, monitor it otherwise don’t have it as it creates a lot of wasted time for recruiters.”
Ms Hanson said the system was a “scam”.
“The system is broken. How can someone say they have applied for a job to be a teacher when you don’t have the qualification for that?,” she said.
“A lot of people out there used to work but won’t work, they have become so used to welfare.”
They added that those who submit sham applications could be at risk of suspensions or demerit points.