By Sean Malloy
Just a year ago, on July 22, the federal government convened the Youth Jobs Summit. Media hype around the summit sought to create the impression that its aim was to create jobs, particularly for young people. However, the real work of the summit was to formalise proposals outlined in the Carmichael Report. This is aimed at establishing a system to train a "flexible", "skilled" work force for the needs of industry.
At the time, Prime Minister Paul Keating said nothing of direct job creation. Jobs would be created by an improved economy and a better trained work force, argued the government.
A year later, unemployment still hovers around the 11% mark. Youth unemployment is still over 30%.
The government doesn't have a program to solve unemployment; it didn't at the time of the Youth Summit, and it doesn't now. In place of a program, it offers a vague hope that lower unemployment will come about as a result of making Australian industry and business "internationally competitive".
Investing in the Nation was published by the government in February, shortly before the federal elections. The document elaborates on the Carmichael proposals, spelling out how to end the recession — for big business, not for the majority of people.
"Lasting progress in addressing unemployment requires a resilient and growing economy", says the document. Job creation is considered a by-product, left in the hands of big business to determine.
A large part of helping big business to become internationally competitive is the creation of a skilled work force which can be rapidly switched on and off. School leavers and older workers alike will be labelled with "competencies", a measure of their skills and skill levels.
Investing in the Nation notes, "We clearly need a more skilled and adaptable workforce which is able to respond positively to changes in technology and industry demands and to be a source of competitive advantage. For young people, this means regarding the later teenage years as a period of vocational preparation." That means eliminating 15-19 year-old full-time jobs (and wages) and renaming 15-19 year-olds trainees.
The document continues later, "We need a more flexible and cooperative industrial relations environment in which wage determination encourages productivity growth and the long-term competitiveness of the enterprise. This will also minimise the risk of large increases in wages unrelated to productivity growth which slow the recovery by reducing profit shares and hence the incentive for industry to invest and employ labour." In other words, the government believes that workers should accept lower wages for the sake of "profit shares" in the hope that a higher profit share will be an "incentive" for industry to create jobs.
Unemployed will also receive training: "These programs will help ensure that disadvantaged job seekers are better placed to compete for the employment opportunities that will accompany the recovery". The document doesn't say so openly, but the effect will be to create a pool of skilled unemployed which can be used to further drive wages down.
In the eyes of the government, "recovery" means rising profits, not lower unemployment: "While the bank balance sheets generally started [improving] in 1991, the pace quickened through 1992. Most companies and financial institutions would now appear to be over the worst of their balance sheet adjustments."
For big business, "efficiency" means lowering wages and making more people redundant, which ties in with the government's definition of "full employment" as real unemployment of at least 6-8%. And the Labor government no longer even makes much pretence of hoping to achieve even that definition of "full" employment.