SUREWAY chief executive David Galloway has slammed a report aired on ABC’s Four Corners on Monday night about the employment agency industry as “biased”.
The report aired allegations some agencies in the sector have been rorting a billion-dollar government scheme that provides funding for both private and not-for-profit job firms.
“I think the report (on Monday night) was a bit biased,” Mr Galloway said.
"I didn’t think they provided a balanced view of the industry.
“I felt it gave a very negative view of the industry without looking at the positive work we do.”
The allegations aired suggested some firms were doctoring job-seeker records and cycling clients through temporary jobs in order to claim benefits from the government’s $1.3 billion-a-year Job Services Australia program.
The employment agency sector was run by the federal government until it was privatised in 1998. Mr Galloway said he believed the industry ran better than before it was privatised.
Mr Galloway said organisations who were doing the wrong thing behind the scheme were “in the minority” with most providers genuine in their efforts to get the unemployed into meaningful work.
That included his own firm, which he said was finding jobs for 200 unemployed people a week nationwide, at locations ranging from Wagga to Port Augusta.
“Our aim is to help people find work but we have to do that within the constraints of the contract the government provides us,” Mr Galloway said.
Mr Galloway said the Job Services Australia agreement Sureway had with the federal government was a 300-page "detailed contract”.
Australia’s job-seeking model, Mr Galloway said, was internationally recognised as one of the world’s best performing programs.
“It’s actually looked upon by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as best practice for helping people find work," he said.
But one Wagga-based job-seeker the Advertiser spoke to on Tuesday believes the system is failing him.
Arop Deng has been looking for work in the city for the past seven months through employment agency Summit, which he claims has left him in the cold.
“They're not trying to help,” he said.
The Advertiser does not suggest any impropriety on behalf of Summit Employment and Training.
Summit were approached for comment by the Advertiser but could not be reached before deadline.
