chrisgaff1000, if you read my post I said hours x basic wage, around $16 per hour.

So, $250.50 = approx 34 hours per cycle.

There are several things that can be looked at, like driveway service at garages. Imagine having your windscreen cleaned while you pump fuel. Who knows, they may even do well on tips if they are any good and, if they are any good, chances are someone will notice which may well lead to a job.

Go,for a drive And youmwill see the roadsides littered with garbage. Surely this can be picked up, because the current council budget obviously doesnt allow for this expense.

There was a guy out here who was offered a three month contract truck driving, about $1800 per week take home, with a possibility of an extension if the boss won another contract.

He turned it down because he said it was too hard to get back on the dole if you go off.

He should have been cut off!

Of cause the real solution is for us to value add our resources, but fat chance of that because we now have no money.

I think the most important thing is to get people on the dole out of the habit of simply sitting around.

I too remember the days where people turned up at workplaces hoping for a start and while they sometimes got a start, often they went home empty handed for the day, but at least they tried. They worked on the theory of, if they turned up often enough, they would get noticed.

It's not often I agree with 579, but one huge problem today is workplace compliance.

Even now as an employer you are reluctant to give a person a days work because the paperwork is simply not worth it which is one reason the contractor business is so large.

I sometime go casual butchering. I turn up at say 6am, then get sent to the office to fill out an employment declaration form, a super form, a site induction form, which results in the best part of an hour gone.

I then do my 7.6 hours,6.6 actually working and earn my $190.

The employer then has to lodge my forms, calculate my tax, allocate my super, pay my wage, pay my tax, the list goes on.

It's the red tape involved these days that is making employing people harder than ever.

This is one area that must be addressed if we wish to reduce unemployment.

rehctub. Welfare can become an institution for some, unfortunately. I absolutely agree with work for the dole. I lived with a classic example of an abuser of the system. Fit healthy 45 year old lost his license due to d.d. Sitting on his butt playing play station with his other unemployed mates daily. Rent assistance, child support, health care card. Community service was a breeze, a few cones and home early every day. Look for work? Why?
When it was suggested I cut down my hours at work, to reduce our already low rent (which I paid), I wont go into details but that was the last straw.
So oh yeah, it would serve greatly, a certain element of those receiving the dole to be seen cleaning the sides of the roads.

Folks much as I hate to say this I have a half brother who boasts that he is the longest "serving" dole bluger in the country. He is 65 and now gets to be eligible for the pension.
He props up the bar of his local bowling club and now has lung cancer FROM SMOKING AND COST THE SYSTEM MORE FOR MEDICAL
What more can I say

Two years compulsory National service for the high rate of youth unemployed would not only teach them discipline, but also give them work skills, get them off the dole, teach them respect, and turn them into productive men and women ready to enter the civilian workforce when the two years was up. After WW2, England did this. They sent off boys, who returned responsible young men with respect for authority, and eager to work at trades they had learned. Their work ethic had been well and truly established.
This would also have the effect of reducing the number of staff needed to oversee the growing number of unemployed, which in turn means the government could trim it's workforce down to those who really work, and cut out the excess mediocre public servants. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians make our present system unwieldy and expensive.
Have noticed our local Bunnings now employ more older people in their warehouse. These still retain the work ethic they had instilled when they were young, and I've seen them keep the young ones on their toes too. Think a bit of mentoring goes on there.
Yes, we are becoming more high tech, but why do our youth think manual labour is beneath them, and prefer to stay on the dole. Because their parents have raised spoiled brats maybe? National service could definitely teach them they have to earn their remuneration, rather than just being given handouts for doing nothing.

Results of research into the scheme actually showed that it was a failure in achieving better employment outcomes for participants.

At best it was a punitive scheme designed to placate the anxious taxpayer by "punishing those lazy bludgers" and making them work for those tax dollars.