Is career advancement important to disadvantaged jobseekers?

• Daniel Perkins, Rosanna Scutella, Lauren Tyrrell
• Brotherhood of St Laurence

Read the full text

08 July 2009For many jobseekers low-paid work is in itself not a good stepping stone towards a better job, so the policy focus has thus shifted from helping welfare recipients to obtain jobs, to supporting employment in quality jobs that offer opportunities for wage and career progression.

This paper looks at career aspirations among Australians who have experienced long periods out of the workforce. While much has been learned about what factors are likely to encourage or act as a barrier to career advancement, there has been comparatively less inquiry into how low-wage workers themselves define advancement and their attitudes towards it.his study seeks to fill part of the gap on research in this area using survey and qualitative interview data from the joint Melbourne Institute/ Brotherhood of St Laurence ARC Linkage project ‘Job retention and advancement of disadvantaged jobseekers’.