Western Australia's job agencies score worst in national ratings

Western Australian employment agencies are well below the national average in official quality measurements, with their Queensland counterparts also below par in most regions.

A Guardian Australia analysis of the December quarter of JobActive star ratings reveals that job service providers in Western Australia and Queensland are the worst performing in the country.

The performance and evaluation of employment agencies – which help jobseekers find work in 1,700 locations around Australia – will be scrutinised at Senate estimates on Thursday.

Every quarter the federal employment department generates a one-to-five star rating for all providers and locations using criteria such as whether jobseekers are in work within 12 and 26 weeks.

According to the analysis, JobActive providers in WA averaged just 1.36 stars, compared with 2.95 for Queensland and the national average of 3.11.

In WA, the worst outcomes were in Geraldton, Broome and the great southern/wheatbelt region where providers received just one star on average. In Perth providers also averaged below two stars, with an average of 1.59 in Perth north and 1.39 in Perth south.

In Queensland, results below the national average were recorded in Fitzroy (1.76), Wivenhoe (2.34), Mackay (2.6), Brisbane south-east (2.86), the Darling Downs (2.94), and Somerset (2.98).

Star ratings are generated by comparing individual sites’ employment outcomes to the national average. A one-star rating equates to scores 40% below the national average; a two-star rating means scores of between 15% and 39% below the national average.

The ratings control for differences between labour markets and jobseekers by using regression analysis “to allow for fair comparison of employment providers’ performances across the country”, the employment department says.

Under this system, the department estimates expected outcome rates for each employment provider and then compares the actual outcomes to generate the star rating.

Nationally 33% of sites are one or two stars and 67% are three, four or five stars.

All other states and territories had scores above the national average: New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory (3.41), Victoria (3.13), South Australia (3.26), Tasmania (3.66) and the Northern Territory (3.45).

In NSW, regions below the national average included: far west Orana (including Broken Hill) with 2.13, the central west (2.34) and Sydney north and west (2.70).

In Victoria, north-western Melbourne (2.24), Ballarat (2.33), Gippsland (2.65) and inner metro Melbourne (2.77) were below the average.

The shadow employment services minister, Ed Husic, told Guardian Australia: “The performance of JobActive providers, according to the government’s own star ratings, is completely unsatisfactory and the employment minister needs to show what steps are being taken to fix this.

“Many regions across WA have an average rating of just one or two stars. This means nearly all the sites in those regions fall below the department’s own mark for requiring review.”

The chief executive of the National Employment Services Association, Sally Sinclair, told Guardian Australia the results were an “anomaly”.

“In 16 years I’ve never seen a distribution like this,” she said, in reference to WA and Queensland lagging so far behind the rest of the country.

Sinclair suggested the ratings system may not have properly accounted for the “rapid adjustment and paradigm shift” in the WA jobs market. “I don’t think you can say it’s necessarily provider performance when 18 months ago these providers were selected [for WA contracts] because of their track record.”

The providers with the lowest ratings in WA were: Atwork Australia, Communicare, MAX Employment, the Salvation Army Employment Plus, the Employment Services Group, Mission Providence, and Skill Hire WA. All were contacted for comment.

A spokeswoman for the employment department said: “The variability in JobActive star ratings is due to ratings reflecting provider performance relative to the national average, rather than absolute benchmarks.

“A rating of one star indicates that a site’s performance is below the national average, but this does not necessarily mean that the services provided are of low quality.”

She said the employment department was undertaking a national review of providers which could reallocate work away from poorer performing providers.

The department spokeswoman suggested the use of averages was “inaccurate” because a four-star site was not twice as good as a two-star one.

It would be “more robust” to analyse the percentage of sites in each rating category, despite the fact both methods convey the higher proportion of one- and two-star ratings in Queensland and WA.