About

Housed at the University of Melbourne, in conjunction with the University of New South Wales and La Trobe University, Getting Welfare to Work is a long-standing research program on welfare and employment services reform at a national and international level.

Employment services policy and delivery is constantly in flux. The sector is persistently subject to design, redesign, regulation and re-regulation in Australia and elsewhere. It needs dedicated, independent, reliable research that can inform policy design and provide both government and providers with evidence of best practice.

Our current research focuses on the next wave of employment services reform – the digitalisation of social services delivery – and what this means for:

• The nature of not-for-profit and contracted providers involvement in services delivery; levels of professionalisation and service tailoring at the frontline, and
• Jobseekers’ access to and experience of employment support