The proposed JobMaker scheme would encourage employers to sack long-term full-time workers, and replace them with part-time workers.
The program pays employers $200 a week for employing people under the age of 30, and $100 for hiring those aged 30-35, but does nothing to protect existing workers from being sacked and replaced with three workers for a third of the wage.
The JobMaker scheme will only further exacerbate the massive issue facing Australian workers – the creation of insecure, casual and part-time jobs.
This will lead to further discrimination towards older, experienced workers who already struggle to find employment.
Through the program’s subsidy from the government, it would also see employers get 20 hours of extra labour for no extra cost to themselves.
The ACTU made these issues known upon announcement of the JobMaker program, as well as in our submission into the inquiry on this piece of legislation and in verbal evidence to the committee, but these points were rejected by the Morrison Government without further discussion.
Quotes attributable to ACTU President Michele O’Neil,
“The JobMaker program is just an incentive for employers to get rid of experienced, older workers and bring on young people that are desperate for work, for a third of the price.
“This scheme will do nothing to address the growing problem of job insecurity. It’s actually creating three insecure jobs in place of one secure, decently paid full-time job.
“Older workers in Australia are already discriminated against, and this program is just going to make that worse by putting money in employers’ hands to replace them with young people.
“This scheme makes it look really tempting to sack someone earning a full-time wage, hire three young and vulnerable people who are desperate for work, for a fraction of the price, and have the remainder of their wage covered by the Government.”
