Australia's Seasonal Worker Program : Demand-side Constraints and Suggested Reforms

Doyle, Jesse ; Howes, Stephen

World Bank Group, Washington, DC

关键词: AGRICULTURAL WORKERS;    BRAIN DRAIN;    CATEGORIES OF WORKERS;    CONTRACTORS;    DISMISSAL;   

RP-ID  :  94368

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

The Seasonal Worker Program (SWP), whichwas informed by the Pacific Seasonal Worker Pilot Scheme(PSWPS), represents the first effort by an Australiangovernment to explicitly open low-skilled work opportunitiesto Pacific Islanders since Federation. The PSWPS was largelymodelled on the success of New Zealand s equivalent RSEscheme. The PSWPS ran over a four year period in thehorticulture sector (2008-2012) and had a total cap of 2,500workers. Despite the widespread success and rapid expansionof the RSE, the PSWPS got off to a slow start and nevermanaged to reach its full potential. This paper aims todetermine whether the factors constraining demand havechanged since the PSWPS and what reforms could help liftemployer demand. It does so through assessing the views of asample of employers and industry bodies across thehorticulture industry. The trial sectors are not covered.The study is divided into five sections. Section twodescribes the origin, design and features of both the PSWPSand SWP. Section three provides a brief overview of thesurvey. Section four presents the key results and discusseshow these compare with those collected by Hay and Howes(2012). Section five explores a possible way forward bysuggesting a series of reforms based on the core set of findings.