The support structure for long term unemployed is a significant part of the problem. Centrelink is, and always has been, an unmitigated disgrace with precious few sentient staff, a plethora of the most moronic rules and regulations ever dreamed up by a bureaucrazy, a totally stuffed information system & a heavy-handed approach to any unfortunate who contravenes some esoteric provision that even the staff don't comprehend. Then there is the completely broken Job Placement Organization male bovine dropping, the third (or is it the fourth ??) in a series of futile attempts by DEEWR to create something remotely approaching workable. As if merely changing the labels on a totally dysfunctional rabble would ever result in meaningful improvement !!

I am aware from discussions with senior DEEWR personnel, that there is a dawning consiousness of the problem with unemployed & unemployable wrinklies, however as with bureaucrazies generally, several decades of running frantically in ever decreasing circles whilst chanting 'woe is me' is invariably entailed before the light of day appears. I can perceive only three viable options, firstly scrapping Centrelink & the JPO nonsense and starting with a completely clean slate with the rules written by a sentient being, secondly, privatizing the whole event, and thirdly (the most likely given the inepitude of gubmunts generally), doing stuff all.

Yes praxidice, I understand the overqualified problem, & it is a real one. I guess little people are afraid of employing someone more competent than themselves.

I was head hunted to run a small manufacturing business when I was 48. I was surprised but could understand after finding the mess I had to sort out. It took 4 years to sort, but the major shareholder had a great 5 years, on a 50 footer cruising the Bahamas there after.

When he died, the kids wanted the capital, & the business was sold. I knew I was unlikely to find anything I wanted to do at 58, so started a little business, making sure I only ever employed the odd contractor for particular jobs.

For your bogans, how about working for the dole cleaning up national parks. Working in dry work camps, on a 3 week on 3 week off basis in a national service type operation. The discipline would be good for many, & 3 weeks off with the dole would give those who found the lifestyle unpleasant, plenty of time to find a real job.

The whole thing could be organized by all those overqualified middle management types, who are now unwanted. I think they, in particular, would prefer to be doing something. They should be able to handle all the logistics on the same 3 on 3 off basis.

The defense forces have a huge excess of officers, necessary to allow rapid expansion when conflict occurs. These trained leaders would benefit from having something useful to organize. The whole thing could perform a number of necessary tasks, including making living near a national park much safer.

Talk about win win.

Hasbeen

I’m delighted that you are surrounded by gung-ho, proactive go-getters, who sail into job after job after 5 minutes on the phone and make such a brilliant impression on all their bosses.

However, I notice that all the scenarios you describe are casual-temp jobs, which are for the most part fairly easy to obtain anyway. This underlines the first point of my last comment. Virtually all long-term unemployed dole recipients are actually on a casual-temp-Newstart treadmill.

Unlike the wildly successful people of your brilliant social circle, many people lack the advantage of location, availability, skills and experience, energy, contacts, self-confidence, youth, social skills and/or psychological resilience. In an increasingly highly competitive job market, full-time career-based employment is quite hard to come by and, even then, has little to no security.

The common cliché of the deadbeat dole bludger watching TV all day and blowing the fortnightly pension on cigarettes and booze is a right-wing fantasy. In one form or another, the fantasy has been around for as long as there have been rich people exploiting poor people.

Praxidice

All good comments in regard to my previous post.

'Centrelink is, and always has been, an unmitigated disgrace with precious few sentient staff, a plethora of the most moronic rules and regulations ever dreamed up by a bureaucrazy...'

Absolutely, yes. However, I wouldn't agree with the 'always has been' part. The Dept of Social Security, as it was formerly known, only started to go down this road around 1980 - as the propaganda war on the fictitious 'dole bludger' gained ascendancy in the neoliberal era.

Before that, most of the DSS budget went on the benefits themselves - i.e. where it was needed. Although successive governments have kept the figures a closely guarded secret, the fact that the Centrelink budget has blown out of all proportion to the rise in unemployment over the last 30 years and that benefits have not kept pace with the cost of living are clear indications that much of its spending is going on administrative overservicing and policing (mostly by private subcontractors feathering their own nests).

This achieves nothing more than a sense of self-righteousness in people like Hasbeen, who want to go on believing that most unemployment is self-inflicted.

Happy days Killarney .. 1980 was several lifetimes ago !! There still dinosaurs running around back then !! I vaguely recall there was a predecessor to Centrelink which did the job placement bit before some gubmunt bright spark decided the Job Network nonsense was the way to go. Obviously it didn't work as it was supposed to, as demonstrated by the multiple rehashes over the years, none of which covered itself in glory. Hardly surprising, failed lawyers & failed union heavies never did have much of a clue. I did have a bit of contact with a few of the Job Network organizations however none inspired me as being on the ball. My recollections are that they were merely going through the motions so they could rip a bit of money from the gubmunt of the day.