Remote communities told to get a job or welfare ends

UP to 2173 unemployed South Australians living in the most remote parts of the state are being told to get a job under a new national employment push.

Mostly living in remote Aboriginal communities, the jobseekers face having welfare payments suspended under a "no-show, no-pay" participation rule.

And jobless under 24 will be recruited for the Remote Youth Corps, required to undertake work experience and to improve their literacy and numeracy skills to get them "job-ready".

Almost 30,000 jobless people living in 65 remote communities across the nation will be targeted by the $1.5 billion federal government program, with a single jobs provider in each region replacing current services from July 1, 2013.

Local communities will be charged with developing community action plans, setting out employment, economic and community development goals. The Government says the scheme will provide relevant training and funding for job creation in the communities.

In SA, the communities include the APY Lands, Yalata, Oak Valley, Ceduna, Coober Pedy and Streaky Bay.

Yalata Community employment manager Robert Spaan said locals welcomed the initiative but they were concerned about how it would be rolled out and the timing.

"The one thing we don't want is training for training's sake," he said. "Yalata does not want welfare - what it wants is jobs."

Federal member for the seat of Grey, which takes in the remote communities, Rowan Ramsey, said the new program would need to ensure that the people targeted were not simply enrolled in training programs with no opportunity for future work.

"That is the absolute problem with all the indigenous training problems that have gone before ... we have been training people for jobs which don't exist," Mr Ramsey said.

"I would support any program that can get people into a job because I think it's the single most important thing we can do to try to drag these remote communities off the deck."

Mr Ramsey said there were Aboriginal jobs programs sponsored by the corporate sector that were having a positive impact, including OZ minerals' Prominent Hill pre-employment training program. 

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/remote-communities-told-to-get-a-job-or-welfare-ends/story-e6frea83-1226386772177
 

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• Teens the focus of Aboriginal jobs push The Australian, 26 Apr 2012
• No show, no pay work rule The Australian, 26 Apr 2012
• $1.5bn jobs plan for indigenous youth The Australian, 26 Apr 2012