Publication: Australia's Seasonal Worker Program : Demand-side Constraints and Suggested Reforms
Date
2015-01
ISSN
Published
2015-01
Author(s)
Doyle, Jesse
Howes, Stephen
Abstract
The Seasonal Worker Program (SWP), which
was informed by the Pacific Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme
(PSWPS), represents the first effort by an Australian
government to explicitly open low-skilled work opportunities
to Pacific Islanders since Federation. The PSWPS was largely
modelled on the success of New Zealand s equivalent RSE
scheme. The PSWPS ran over a four year period in the
horticulture sector (2008-2012) and had a total cap of 2,500
workers. Despite the widespread success and rapid expansion
of the RSE, the PSWPS got off to a slow start and never
managed to reach its full potential. This paper aims to
determine whether the factors constraining demand have
changed since the PSWPS and what reforms could help lift
employer demand. It does so through assessing the views of a
sample of employers and industry bodies across the
horticulture industry. The trial sectors are not covered.
The study is divided into five sections. Section two
describes the origin, design and features of both the PSWPS
and SWP. Section three provides a brief overview of the
survey. Section four presents the key results and discusses
how these compare with those collected by Hay and Howes
(2012). Section five explores a possible way forward by
suggesting a series of reforms based on the core set of findings.
Citation
“Doyle, Jesse; Howes, Stephen. 2015. Australia's Seasonal Worker Program : Demand-side Constraints and Suggested Reforms. Discussion paper;. © World Bank Group, Washington, DC. http://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/21491 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”