Workforce Australia has been branded “a complete failure” by the public sector union after new figures reveal an employment system that is delivering declining outcomes.

According to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations’ annual report, 11.7 per cent of jobseekers secured long-term work during the 12-month period to 30 June 2025.

“An 11.7 per cent success rate isn’t success at all – it’s failure. Failure to support jobseekers, failure to meet workforce demands, and failure to provide value for money,” Melissa Donnelly – National Secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union – said.

“Privatisation has turned employment services into a tick-a-box profit-driven industry that rewards providers for keeping people in a cycle of unemployment, and these numbers are proof of that,” she added.

As the DEWR’s annual report states: “Employment results over two years show a declining trend in the outcome rate.” The department blames this on “a growing skills mismatch between unemployed people – such as those on the Workforce Australia Services caseload – and job vacancies.”

“This skills mismatch made it harder to achieve job placements for participants,” says the report.

The CPSU also notes that the employment services system is dominated by only a small handful of providers. Some of whom “have been caught engaging in unethical behaviour, gouging as much money as they can from their already highly lucrative government contracts,” says the union.

Indeed, media reports have uncovered millions of dollars being skimmed off government contracts as providers pay themselves for moving welfare recipients through jobs and training programs within their own companies. “This is not value for money, and it is not delivering for Australians who need real support to find secure employment,” says the CPSU.

It’s time to end this failed experiment.

The Commonwealth Employment Service was privatised in 1998 and replaced with a contracted model where providers are paid for performance. Rebranded a number of times, the employment services system became Workforce Australia in 2022. “It’s time to end this failed experiment and bring back the CES,” Donnelly said.

The CPSU is calling for “a modern and fit-for-purpose” employment service that provides “real pathways to employment, supports local communities and businesses, and restores integrity to a system that has well and truly lost its way.”