Anne Ruston says job seekers in Melbourne should search for employment if it’s safe

Unemployed Melburnians are being encouraged to search for jobs from next month despite the city being in lockdown.

Social Services Minister Anne Ruston said the reintroduction of mutual obligations for those on JobSeeker would encourage people to start testing the jobs market. Picture: AAP

Unemployed Melburnians are being encouraged to search for jobs from next month, despite the city being in lockdown, with assurances from the Morrison government that they will not be penalised if they cannot safely look for work.

Mutual obligations will be reintroduced for people on JobSeeker from August 4, requiring welfare recipients to search for four jobs a month.

The number of jobs a person must look for will increase.

If a jobseeker refuses an offer of suitable employment without a valid reason, their payment may be cancelled and they may have to wait four weeks before they can reapply for income support. JobSeeker will reduce by $300 to $815.70 per fortnight from the end of September.

Victorians will not be exempted from the mutual obligations and Social Services Minister Anne Ruston said it would be up to job service providers to decide “what is an appropriate level of engagement”.

“In the case of Victoria, particularly in Melbourne, we would be expecting them not to be expected to undertake anything that is not safe,” Senator Ruston told ABC radio.

“The employment providers would certainly be advising people who are in areas of lockdown they shouldn’t be doing anything that’s unsafe.

“Of course we’d like them to be picking up the phone if they can, but equally we understand Melbourne’s likely to be longer before they’re able to do it.”

Job-search platform Seek said COVID-19 restrictions in Victoria meant job ad volumes had begun to slow there, even before the six-week lockdown for Greater Melbourne took effect on July 9.

“In the fortnight ended 5 July, Victoria had a job ad volume of 55.9 per cent, compared to the national average of 66.6 per cent of pre-COVID levels,” a Seek spokeswoman said.

Opposition employment spokesman Brendan O’Connor said mutual obligations, where job seekers attend appointments with providers, make job plans, search for jobs and participate in activities in order to receive income support, were important and a reasonable expectation.

“Certainly Melbourne and the Shire of Mitchell probably will have to deal with this approach differently,” he told ABC TV. “If, for example, there’s any chance of increasing a health risk by complying with a mutual obligation principle, then I think health has to prevail. I’m sure the government understands that.”

Senator Ruston said the lockdown in Greater Melbourne showed the fragility of the economy during the pandemic but the jobs market was starting to open up elsewhere.

“We have to make sure we put in place the balance between continued higher levels of support, recognising we do have a very shallow job market, we’re not shying away from that,” she said.

“At the same time we want to encourage people to actually start going out and testing the jobs market.”

Victorian Council of Social Service chief executive Emma King said “forcing people to apply for jobs that don’t exist defies logic”. “Reintroducing unfair mutual obligation requirements in the middle of a pandemic is both offensive and dumb,” she said.

“There simply aren’t enough jobs to go around. So why are we back to punishing people who are out of work?”