Employment and Economic Participation

While measurement is difficult, the data that is available suggests that little progress has been made on improving employment outcomes in the Northern Territory, and the gap is, in fact, widening.

Nationally, the original Closing the Gap target of 2008 was to halve the gap in employment by 2018.  In 2018, the federal government admitted that this had not been achieved, and that in fact Indigenous employment had fallen slightly over the previous decade. What about the Northern Territory?

After moving from a focus on the protection of children, the employment initiatives introduced under the Intervention were refined and extended. In 2008, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) introduced the National Integrated Strategy for Closing the Gap as part of a new 'integrated approach to employment services'. A number of employment services were brought together, including Job Services Australia (JSA), Indigenous Employment Program (IEP) and Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP). However, this package of programs was criticised for being ‘fragmented’, ‘inflexible’ and ‘unresponsive to community needs’.

A specific employment package for the Northern Territory worth $75.4 million was also implemented through Community Employment Brokers, which included work-for-the-dole, job network services and structured training and employment projects. These reforms aimed to promote economic independence and participation in the economy, as well as skill acquisition and employer support. It was hoped that in the long term these reforms would engage people in the mainstream economy and improve employability and personal responsibility, with flow on effects to families and communities.

In July 2009, the CDEP program was discontinued in all non-remote communities and all CDEP participants were moved onto income support payments to encourage employment in the mainstream economy. Existing participants in remote communities would continue receiving wages until 2011 (later extended to 2017, then cut back to July 2015). Many of the community development projects that had been operating were assisting with inter-generational psychological trauma passed or providing essential services such as safe houses and community educations and activities. In 2012, legislation was enacted to create 50 new jobs and 100 traineeships; however the CDEP program had previously employed 7,500 individuals.

Remote Jobs and Communities Program (RJCP) was created in 2013 to replace and streamline the existing programs. It focused on community ownership and skill training in activities that benefited the community. ‘Mutual obligation’ activities meant that recipients had to work 15-20 hours per week in accordance with Individual Participation Plans. From July 1 2015, the RJCP was renamed the Community Development Programme (CDP) and extended to 25 hours of work per week . This had the effect of enabling Indigenous Australians to overcome the barriers which impeded their capacity to advance into the employment sector. Since 2015, this project has supported remote job seekers. According to a government media release from 2017, the program has provided Indigenous Australians with more than 15,700 jobs. However, participants of the CDP must work three times the length of other job-seekers in order to receive welfare payments.

In the 2017-18 Budget, the Government announced they were considering a new remote employment model to break the cycle of welfare dependency in remote Australia’. The Government’s vision is to create a ‘wage based’ model for remote Australia which combines the best aspects of both the CDP and past models, such as the CDEP. To this end, formal consultations were invited on a new employment and participation model for remote communities. The discussion paper was released in December 2017 and outlined three potential reform options:  an improved version of the current CDP model to provide more tailored support, a model based on the CDP Reform Bill introduced in 2015, and a new wage-based model, underpinned by three tiers of participation. The report indicated that the ‘CDP cannot and should not continue in its current form’, and recommended a move away from top-down administrative processes.

More recently, the Government announced a $55.7 million Closing the Gap Employment Services package in the 2017-18 Budget. This package comprises a boost to the jobactive program, which is the Australian Government’s employment service for urban and regional centres Australia. The program is being expanded to deliver upfront intensive employment services to Indigenous job-seekers.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has stated that it is difficult to obtain accurate statistics on Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory due to small numbers and wide dispersion, especially in remote areas across the territory. The indigenous population also has a higher proportion of young people, which can skew employment figures when compared to non-indigenous populations.

2018 has seen a sudden spike in discriminatory measures being exacted in remote  communities within the Northern Territory in terms of the operation of the Community Development Program (CDP). Unemployed individuals involved in the program are subject to a decrease of $50 per day in which they fail to attend prescribed work-for-the-dole activities. 84% of CDP participants nationwide are Indigenous, whilst over a quarter of the Indigenous people engage in CDP in the Northern Territory. Regions within the Northern Territory in which there are higher proportions of Indigenous inhabitants are issued with a greater rate of penalties due to the limitation on employment opportunities resulting in non-compliance with CDP requirements.

The Numbers:

From 2008-10 there were over 2000 jobs created in the Northern Territory, which corresponded with a 9% increase in the number of Indigenous people employed in non-CDEP jobs. Despite  the government’s efforts to transition to a reliance on the mainstream economy for employment, only a third of the Indigenous population held non-CDEP jobs in 2011, compared to four-fifths of the non-Indigenous population. On top of this, 1357 Indigenous people were employed in service industries directly reliant on the Intervention during 2012-13.

Since 2016, the gap between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous unemployment rates nationally has widened by 1.5% to 25.2%. In the Northern Territory alone, the Indigenous employment rate fell by 7.7% to 31.2% during the period between 2010-2016. This is partially attributed to the end of the mining-boom and the transition from CDEP to CDP. For example, if the Northern Territory Indigenous employment rate is disaggregated for CDEP status, the employment rate actually improves by 9.9% in the same time period.  Thus, the decrease in the labour force participation rate of Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory may be a result of  CDEP  programs  ceasing because this had inflated the pre-2009 ‘employed’ statistics.

Nonetheless, female Indigenous employment rates continue to improve, up from 39% in 2006 (excluding CDEP) to 44.8% in 2016. However, these improvements are ultimately offset by Indigenous men increasingly ceasing to work in the labour market.

The income gap between Indigenous Northern Territorians and their non-Indigenous counterparts has also increased. The median household income of Indigenous households grew at a slower rate than non-Indigenous households. Likewise, the gap between personal income levels has also widened in the Northern Territory, despite narrowing in other states. This indicates that the Northern Territory-specific policies that have been implemented are actually having a negative impact on income levels. As such, the number of people on income support increased significantly from 2009-10 before decreasing slightly from 2011-12.

Evaluation:

Communities feel that the increase in employment is beneficial. However, the cancellation of the CDEP program and replacement with the RJCP has not been accompanied by additional job creation in the mainstream economy. The demand for employment in the relevant areas of the Northern Territory has outstripped the number of jobs available, and government  efforts to provide jobs have been insufficient. This is especially the case in remote communities where there are limited employment opportunities. Where jobs have been created, the government has acknowledged that they are dependent on ongoing funding and provide few avenues for career progression or mobility. Community feedback reflects similar concerns. In the 2011 Community Safety and Wellbeing Research Survey, most Indigenous respondents commented that more employment and training opportunities were needed.

The fly-in, fly-out model of the Community Employment Broker program has been criticised for leading to an array of new faces and limited understanding on the client base. The lack of consistent contact  has  meant  that the  establishment  of a  ‘participation  culture’ has  been  described as challenging due to the difficulties in enforcing ‘mutual obligation requirements’ in remote communities.

Reforms to the CDP program were announced as part of the 2018-2019 Budget to help remote job seekers transition from a reliance on the welfare system into the workforce. The reforms were to be implemented in early 2019 and include a reduction in reporting requirements for job seekers participating in the CDP, improvements to assessment processes, and reducing the minimum required participation in the program from 25 to 20 hours. It is too early to determine what impact may result from the initiatives.

Barriers to the effective implementation of employment packages remain. The lack of transport infrastructure, low education levels and investment uncertainty due to ongoing land tenure changes have all contributed to the failure to meet this target.