Employers and the CES: Darwin in 1983

Abstract

The Department of Employment and Industrial Relations, Darwin Office (EDIR) commissioned the North Australia Research Unit (NARU) to carry out a survey, late in 1983, on the use which business organisations make of the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES). Weigolsz and Maclauchlan have commented in a recent study that although the service has been in existence for many years, very little research into its activities has been carried out. There is a difference between what may be called the ideology of employers about the CES , as expressed in off-the-cuff remarks, and the more carefully described experiences and opinions as expressed in answers to the survey. In casual conversation, the CES is portrayed in more or less extravagant terms, terms which imply that it is basically a slow moving unresponsive bureaucratic organisation in which staff lack the motivation found in the business world and are probably not very good at their jobs. Much of this came out in the casual remarks many employers made to our interviewer. There is, of course, a connection between those remarks and the assessments reported in the survey, but there is also an exaggeration. This suggests that to improve its image, the CES must not only improve its services, a topic to be taken up below, but also undertake a more general public relations or image building campaign, possibly best focussed at selected target groups of employers. The questionnaire used in the survey was designed to obtain information that might be used in making specific improvements to the service; it was not designed to tap the broader and more extravagant opinions about the CES and consequently it gives little guidance about how a public relations campaign might be carried out. Turning now to the survey, it is important to note that on most questions there was very little differentiation of the opinions and assessment of employers by industry, by size or kind of employer, by employer location or by CES office used. Show more