Australia: Supported Employment in the Public Sector
By
Mark T. Richards, ILRU Project
AUSTRALIA--According to a recent report in the Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, supported employment has shown steady growth throughout the world since its inception in the 1980s. In Australia, 61 percent of people with disabilities who received employment services were doing so through supported employment. The article presents research findings of a study of supported employment, particularly the benefits of placement into public sector versus private sector jobs, which focused on the record of one of Australia's oldest and largest employment services for individuals with disabilities, EDGE Employment Solutions.
The EDGE database was examined from January 1984 through May 2002, which involved 2,653 competitive job positions for 1,063 individuals with disabilities. The database included placement information such as demographics, primary disability, work history, means of securing placements, current job, wages, work hours, and length of time remaining on any given job. This information was linked to an employer database which differentiated between public and private sector employers.
From its inception, EDGE frequently used public sector positions to facilitate vocational training and placement of western Australians with disabilities, although many similar agencies throughout the world tend to focus their efforts on placements into privately owned businesses. Just over 20 percent of current EDGE placements have been into public sector positions. This is comparable to the slightly less than 20 percent of nondisabled western Australians who work for federal, state, or local government. In addition, EDGE has shown a savings of AUS $13.2m to the Australian taxpayer when comparing the cost of its services (AUS $18.9 m) to that of unpaid pensions and subsidies (AUS$ 32.1m).
The authors suggest that agencies similar to EDGE rely more heavily on private sector placements for reasons that are perceived to be valid, but may not in fact present actual obstacles to successful employment. These include trends toward downsizing of government services, entry criteria which may create insurmountable barriers and a lengthy time frame to secure public versus private sector jobs. The authors address these concerns but provide data to show that increased work hours, wages including benefits, and job tenure make such placements very worthwhile.
The citation for the article is Robertson, S., Lewis, G., & Hiila, H. (2004). Supported employment in the public sector for people with significant disabilities. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 21(1), 917.
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