Why I want an investigation for Employment Services?

Why I want an investigation for Employment Services?

I have been a client to Epic Assist, the employment service via Centrelink’s DES provider since February this year, and recently been with Max Employment during the year of 2013 and 2014. My purpose to be with them is to get a job because of my struggle to find employment despite writing several applications in time finding volunteer, temp roles and internships.

Employment agencies are meant to help their clients to get a job? Or it just their jobs to help their applications? I have no outcomes from any employment agencies I have been with. It is very frustrating for such qualified and experienced young adult with disabilities. Writing applications can be time consuming, emotionally draining and feeling marginalised. High number of rejections, at the same time of very slow process of help from the employment agencies there no results would help me to gain further career experience.

I see that employment agencies are also job seekers before they land their own jobs. They are there to get paid to have clients, then do nothing much about it. They sit at their computer screens all day emailing, phone calling like a marketer, they don’t provide results for people like in my situation. I find having employment agencies, especially linked with Centrelink without having successful results is such a waste of taxpayers’ money. I feel ashamed to be a client wasting someone’s taxpayer money because I didn’t get a job through them.

Why employment agents want to do their jobs? It because they want to sit there and get paid, not having an achievable results for their clients. Most of the available jobs through them are at lower class level. You can explain why we have massive youth and disability unemployment percentages here in Queensland, and in Australia. This is because the employers/recruiters have higher power than employment services to hire someone.

People who are young and disabled are easily marginalised and stigmatised by the mainstream society because the way what they expect they get is different. Getting a job at McDonald’s, or a café is not a career pathway for talented, intelligent and highly qualified young people. People with disabilities are also vulnerable at this level too. Employment agencies, especially the DES providers do not have enough outcomes to achieve the disabled people to get employed. Why? Again, it’s the employers’ power of who to recruit for the roles.

In my experience, all employment agents I have been through told me they only help me to apply jobs. Nothing else. They also told me they don’t find me a job, or get the network to help me to find a potential employer. This made me thinking what is the purpose employment services is trying to do here? They are just to make money because these agents applied jobs who were once in same situations as many vulnerable people were. I have written several and several hundreds of job applications independently for years. I only achieved one job interview more recently. I did this application on my own, without help from the employment agent.

So applying jobs and being with an employment agency it does not prove any different results. I still get rejected, since the fact I said my agents doesn’t have a power of an employer/recruiter to hire someone. The results still ineffective for a job seeker who is having trouble to find a secured employment, especially in long-term.

I demand to serious federal investigation of the employment agencies across the country because of their ineffective results and achievements to their clients, including myself. I am extremely frustrated and angry at how they treat their clients. Are we, as clients, being a dollar sign to the agencies? 

Written by Mathew Townsend. An advocate for Sustainable Development and Diversity Inclusion