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Indigenous Australians suffer a huge disparity in employment. Indigenous Australians are three times more likely to be unemployed than non-Indigenous Australians. Indigenous participation rates are low and unemployment rates are high, and efforts to end this employment disparity have yielded disappointing results over periods of successive governments.
On 29 July 2010 GenerationOne hosted an Ideas Forum dedicated to addressing the causes of poor Indigenous employment outcomes and focusing on finding ways of creating sustainable Indigenous employment.
The Ideas Forum built on anecdotal evidence collected during GenerationOne’s engagement with the community including through the 3-month roadshow consultation which visited over 60 communities; through the series of business breakfasts hosted across the nation; via the www.generationone.org.au website; and through social media networks.
At a macro level the ideas forum discussed the importance of promoting awareness of the benefits of greater Indigenous employment and participation. For organisations a cultural shift is required where Indigenous employment is not seen as a problem to be contended with, but is seen as enriching and deepening organisational culture. Indeed, as Tania Major highlighted “this mindset may be at the heart of policy failure - indigenous people have been, and continue to be, defined as problems to be solved” (Major 2010).
An effective Indigenous employment strategy (IES) will enhance the capacity of Indigenous job seekers to gain meaningful employment and participate fully within the workplace.
Any approach to ending the disparity between Indigenous and non-Indigenous employment outcomes must have the following features: it must be comprehensive, coordinated, (multi-pronged and integrated) and cooperative. There is a need to match supply and demand for employment and this requires education and training provision that is targeted to the jobs that will be provided by industry (Giddy et al 2009). Appropriate matching of jobs with job seekers must involve better coordination between education providers, brokers and employment providers.
Progression towards ending the disparity can be considered in two fundamentally distinct ways:
- a) whether there has been a positive change in the economic circumstances of individuals in terms of their employment and wealth;
- b) whether there has been a broader social benefit in improving the livelihood of Indigenous people from a program of support and development. In other words, has there been a Social Return on Investment (SROI).
Ideally, an effective Indigenous employment strategy should produce an optimal intersection of culture and socio-economic outcomes as outlined by Noel Pearson: “That they have capabilities to choose the lives they have reason to value...that our children be able to orbit between two worlds and have the best of both” (Pearson 2009).
This report fleshes out some of the major themes of the panel discussion on developing strategies that can meet the needs of all parties for more sustained Indigenous employment.
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