The Federal Government has recently completed its evaluation of the Disability Employment Services (DES) program and has made a number of observations and recommendations. In particular, it has recommended that several providers should lose their contracts due to poor performance. The review also commented that a number of providers “park” their most difficult jobseekers and deem them to be too difficult to place into open employment. It was also observed that a number of jobseekers only remained in employment until the employer government subsidy expired and then the jobseekers were let go.
The ‘parking’ and employers only taking on a jobseeker with disability until the subsidy runs out are not new phenomena as they have been occurring for many years in the DES program.
The Federal Government has recently completed its evaluation of the Disability Employment Services (DES) program and has made a number of observations and recommendations.