Working

Indigenous
Australians

Scoping study:
Improving data collection
and identifying effective
labour market interventions
for Indigenous peoples
Dr Tanya Bretherton
Justine Evesson
Serena Yu

Contents
Key Findings

Introduction

Scope of the report

- Conceptual critique

- Quantitative approaches to
Indigenous career analysis

23

- Qualitative approaches to
Indigenous career analysis

36

- Moving forward best practice

and quantitative next steps

55

Conclusion

60

References

62

Appendix

66

Key Finding Summary

KF1

KF4

The regular production of an employment

or workforce update on Indigenous workers,
would require headline measures which
offer insight to Indigenous experience and
comparability to the mainstream labour
market. There are signicant problems with
the use of headline measures in assessing
the state of Indigenous employment. These
problems stem from both data viability
problems, and broader questions about the
true level of insight that these measures afford
to discussions of job and career signicance.

Much research which aims to deliver insights

on Indigenous workforce experience is
guided by an analytical framework skewed
towards supply side concerns. This paper
argues that multiple factors, which are
complexly interconnected, produce labour
market outcomes. An alternative analytical
approach (4X4 model), which takes greater
account of this complexity, is proposed. Four
sets of factors are identied as important to
the analysis. These four factors are argued
to work in counterbalance. In designing
a methodology, researchers must ensure
that the vantage point of research permits
observation of multiple factors, and their
interconnection.

KF2
In order to offer useful and meaningful
insights on genuine and sustained labour
market experience and career formation,
new data items would need to be developed
which offer insight on these variables. The
current categories used in national data
collections (employment, unemployment,
length of time in job) are static, and do not
offer insight on longer term employment
outcomes. As it stands, there is a dearth of
data and denitional information that might be
used to develop the concept of career as an
observable outcome.

KF5
In research terms, labour market
intermediaries are positioned to offer a
unique vantage point of many of these factors
simultaneously, positioned as they are between
the interests of the employer (demand) and
employee (supply) sides of the labour market.

KF6
There is currently no established national
survey instrument which can offer the insights
necessary to understand successful career
transitions and outcome for Indigenous
peoples. The notional goal of a biannual or
biennial employment report on Indigenous
career transitions, which would be both reliable
and insightful, is not currently attainable using
the existing suite of data sources.

KF3
Data items capable of insights on career and
sustainable employment are not currently
available, and their production is likely to be
costly. Literature and qualitative interviews
identify a number of reasons for this including:
ux and change within the labour market
and resource constraints associated with
the costs of data collection. In the absence
of viable data items on career, longitudinal
data is identied by key experts as a possible
way forward. Longitudinal data, of the kind
required in this case, would have a lead time of
two years at a minimum.

KF7
It is possible that individual organisations
may be able to develop their own evaluative
instruments that could offer insight on
career outcomes for their own Indigenous
constituents (clients, employees). However,

this would take signicant work at the

institutional level to explore the capacity to
deliver outcome-based statistical indicators.

KF13
Demand side considerations require rethinking,
and implicit barriers to employment require
further examination, in light of new models of
best practice.

KF8
Signicant reformation of national statistical
holdings would need to occur, in order to
deliver national career-relevant data items
capable of reecting Indigenous, and indeed
mainstream, experience.

KF14
In the context of best practice in career
development, much greater differentiation of,
and clarication around positive mentoring is
required

KF9
Best practice has made a conicted
contribution to the eld of Indigenous
employment policy and research. The concept
needs further adaptation in order to prove
effective in enhancing understanding of career
development, and success.

KF15
There appears no accepted denition of
effective cross cultural awareness, and the
issue is highly contentious in best practice
terms.

KF16

KF10

The issue of career aspiration needs to feature

more prominently in determination of best
practice behaviour in the realm of Indigenous
employment programs.

The best practice concept needs to be made

more user-friendly. The prescriptive checklist
approach, which has dominated best practice
guidelines to date, is not particularly effective
for users (either employers or labour market
intermediaries). Developing or improving the
diagnostic elements of best practice guidelines
is recommended.

KF17
The delivery of long term employment
outcomes on a large scale, require specic
forms of local community engagement, beyond
what is currently considered best practice.

KF11

KF18

Labour market intermediaries and brokering

organisations continue to play an important
role in career formation and development
for Indigenous peoples. However, these
agencies need an improved information base
that will help educate their engagements
with Indigenous peoples, so that approaches
and interventions are designed to address
identied, and not assumed, barriers.

There are strong arguments for undertaking

further qualitative work which could be
used as the foundation for future statistical
(quantitative) tools of measurement on
career. Without signicant resources, the
most feasible option, in both resource and
capability terms, appears to be improving the
collection methods and insights surrounding
administrative data collection processes at the
agency (intermediary) level.

KF12
Improving the information base on possible
best practice approaches, is not necessarily
about hard numbers, but ensuring a thorough
catchment of the range of issues likely to
impact Indigenous engagement with, and
sustained involvement in, paid labour market
participation. In this regard, the 4X4 model
may be instructive to practice.

KF19
The approach to drafting best practice
guidelines needs to be altered. This adaptation
should focus on improving the usability of
guidelines, and offer users with the ability
to assess (ie. diagnose) core labour market
barriers in a more systematic way, and with
greater differentiation. A prototype model is
developed, and provided.

Introduction

level) which simultaneously need to be brought

to bear in order to undertake meaningful
analysis of Indigenous labour market
experience. This model also highlights that
previous research in this eld has displayed a
signicant supply-side bias in its analysis and
characterisation of key employment barriers.
This bias has meant that demand side factors
(such as employer attitudes and practice)

This report considers the effectiveness of

some key concepts, and data, currently
informing the knowledge and policy base
on career formation and development for
Indigenous workers in Australia. The report
can be viewed in four parts. Firstly, the
report critiques the literature and conceptual
underpinnings of this eld of interest, and
proposes that an alternative analytical
framework is required in order to enhance
the level of insight available. The report
presents an alternative 4X4 factor model as
a possible prototype. The second part of the
report closely considers the statistical and
quantitative terrain surrounding Indigenous
workforce experience, and considers how
this base might be expanded, taking into
account current resource, procedural and
methodological constraints. Thirdly, the
report discusses best practice principles, and
considers whether these guidelines ultimately
serve to conate, or confound, understanding
of Indigenous career development. To
conclude, the report recommends ways in
which future research approaches might
absorb and address the quantitative insights
provided by this scoping report. On the
issue of best practice, an alternative
differential diagnostic model is proposed as
a way forward.

which also demonstrate signicant inuence

over the likelihood of both employment entry
and sustainable engagement have received
less attention in studies of Indigenous
employment transition. We argue that this
oversight has served to skew the analysis, and
ultimately undermine the quality of labour
market interventions that might be developed
in order to establish positive preconditions for
both labour market entry and success in the
long term. The differential diagnostic model,
proposed at the conclusion of this paper,
seeks to bring greater order and scrutiny to
the accepted wisdom surrounding successful
Indigenous employment programs. The model
seeks to improve the usability of best practice
principles, so that stakeholders engaged in
either supply or demand sides of labour market
activity, might be able to assess and apply best
practice directives in a more meaningful and
appropriate way.

A key nding of this research identies that

comprehensive understanding of sustainable
labour market engagement for Indigenous
peoples is achievable, but only through
consideration of what we describe as a 4X4
factor analysis. This 4X4 factor model can be
used to identify the drivers, barriers and level
of insight (both labour market and workplace

For ease of reading the report is divided

into four core areas of analysis: conceptual
critique; quantitative critique; qualitative
review of the best practice concept; and nal
recommendations going forward. Key ndings
are indicated throughout the report, with
supporting discussion provided in each case.

Scoping of the Report

CONCEPTUAL CRITIQUE

As a scoping project, it has been important

for this research to maintain a strong
exploratory focus. To give structure to
this exploration however, two key concepts
have formed important parameters for the
analysis career and best practice. A
major contribution of this paper is to consider
these concepts, and how they might best
be evaluated, exclusively in the context of
Indigenous labour market experience. The
report has relied on published statistical
material, academic and policy literature and
qualitative interviews with key informants
pertinent to the eld of analysis including:
statisticians; Indigenous employment
policy experts and employers identied as
best practice operators in the delivery
of Indigenous employment programs. A
comprehensive account of the methodology
used by this research project is provided in the
appendices.

Major research ventures both within and

outside government have grappled with the
question of how to track the status of and
patterns in employment amongst Indigenous
workers and job seekers. However, these
investigations offer limited insight on the
question of signicance and meaning of
employment, when considered in the longer
term context of career and labour market
trajectory. The issue of career development
is generally poorly understood because
pathways, at least those beyond entry level,
have not been documented or mapped
systematically in many industries (Savage et al
2009). In part, this is because ows of labour
in and out of the labour market (either between
jobs, or between income support systems
and the formal labour market) remain poorly
understood (Bretherton 2011). What might be
described as positive transitions between jobs
(those that yield positive, long term career
outcomes), between education and training and
work, and between forms of employment, are
poorly documented overall and remain highly
contested by the literature.

Within this broader conceptual exploration,

the research has also been charged with the
responsibility of making specic procedural
recommendations with regard to the
accessibility, viability, and production of
data within the realm of Indigenous career
development. The research will therefore
address these two questions. The rst
question asks whether biannual and/or biennial
Indigenous employment reports might be
possible, and whether these documents would
represent a robust, useful and sustainable
information source for stakeholders, given the
availability and focus of current data sources.
In addition, the report will also consider the
viability of the best practice principle, and
whether prescriptive guidelines of this ilk form
a constructive addition to the exploration and
development of viable intervention models
appropriate to Indigenous workforce needs.

In seeking to understand the nature of,

and outcomes derived from labour market
participation for Indigenous peoples, the
researcher is faced with a number of vexed
questions. While national data holdings on
mainstream labour market participation are
generally considered reliable in their counts,
and are certainly used as the foundation
of policy formation on employment and
unemployment interventions, the credibility
of Indigenous data collection methods and
outcomes has been highly contested for more
than thirty years (CAEPR 2000). It might
be said that while career-focused labour
market research represents a next and more
sophisticated step for mainstream labour
market research, in the eld of Indigenous
labour market research, statisticians

continue to struggle with getting even the

fundamentals of labour market participation
to a point where there is some consensus over
accuracy.

comparability to the mainstream

labour market. There are signicant
problems with the use of headline
measures in assessing the state
of Indigenous employment. These
problems stem from both data
viability problems, and broader
questions about the true level of
insight that these measures afford
to discussions of job and career
signicance.

The starting point for analysis

making sense of national data
The reliability of current national data holdings
on labour market participation and Indigenous
peoples in Australia is deeply questioned
by academics, statisticians and Indigenous
community organisations. While this paper
does not seek to document all permutations
of the credibility crisis facing Indigenous
data collection, it is important to note some
key methodological problems. The notion of
career, and how this is best operationalized
or manifested as a research concept, remains
unresolved. While much attention has been
paid to notional pathways to employment
for Indigenous peoples, particularly from job
seeking (CAEPR 2000) and training programs
(Dockery & Milsom 2007), pathways within
and between employment remain poorly
understood conceptually, and have not been
documented statistically.

There are two main reasons why statistical

holdings on labour market participation
are problematic in the eld of Indigenous
research. While there have been extensive
studies documenting the range of problems
associated with data holdings on Indigenous
workers and job seekers (CAEPR), this paper
argues these problems can be distilled into two
core concerns problems of relevance, and
reliability.
Questions of reliability surround basic headline
categories of employed, unemployed or not
in the labour force for Indigenous peoples
in what might be described as conventional
or mainstream labour market settings. The
validity of sample size, generalizability of
ndings, selection methods, data collection
and interview techniques have all been called
into question by academic critiques in this
eld. The need to collect data in a way that
offers the greatest scope for comparison with
mainstream experience is clearly important.
Federal, state and local governments, not
for prot organisations and lobby groups
all acknowledge the need for accurate data
which offers the ability to track progress in
the achievement of equity and social justice
milestones.

The concept of career is problematic in the

eld of both labour market and Indigenous
studies, for three main reasons. Firstly, there
is a dearth of reliable data on Indigenous
employment. Secondly, there is a dearth
of qualitative and quantitative information
about the core concept of career. Thirdly, any
established or accepted concepts of career are
not static, and indeed in the last twenty years
appear to have undergone quite radical change.
The key ndings of these investigations are
outlined below and throughout the report.

However, the statistician also faces the

important task of ensuring the relevance of
data to Indigenous experience. Researchers
question whether conventional employment
categories provide a good cultural t for the

KF1 The regular production of an

employment or workforce update on
Indigenous workers, would require
headline measures which offer
insight to Indigenous experience and

items would need to be developed

which offer insight on these
variables. The current categories
used in national data collections
(employment, unemployment,
length of time in job) are static,
and do not offer insight on longer
term employment outcomes. As it
stands, there is a dearth of data and
denitional information that might
be used to develop the concept of
career as an observable outcome.

range and diversity of Indigenous economic

experience. As Yu (2011) notes, many
Indigenous peoples live in remote rural areas
that are spatially isolated from mainstream
sectors of the Australian economy. This
means that while employment roles in these
regions may, on the surface, appear to be
conventional (eg child care worker), the way
work is undertaken may be unique because
of geographic location and cultural setting.
Much of this activity has not been mapped, or
statistically acknowledged in any systematic
way (Altman and Gray 2005). Statistical
inaccuracies are argued to be particularly
pronounced in Indigenous economic settings
where Indigenous economies and markets
play a strong role in shaping local labour
market behaviour (Altman 2000). Examples
of activities which are overlooked include
payment in kind, notionally different forms of
income transfer (between and within different
family units), and subsistence pursuits rather
than capital and wealth accumulation (Altman
2000).

While some specic occupations could be

labelled as having a well-dened career path,
with job roles sequential and identiable
(eg nurses, lawyers) many occupations and/
or sectoral patterns of employment are not
dened in this way (Spoonley et al 2002).
Whether a particular job role represents a
signicant or insignicant transition in the
context of a positive career or employment
trajectory continues to be explored within the
literature.
There appears to be a degree of consensus
within the literature that ideal data sources
on career development require longer term
insights to be brought to bear within research
design. Chapman and Gray (2006) identify
that understanding and identication of
what they note to be the determinants
of employment at the individual level,
undoubtedly require longitudinal data. While
there are a range of statistical indicators
which rely on longitudinal design, these
have proved to be highly problematic for the
analysis of Indigenous experience. Adequate
and appropriate sampling (in other words,
maintaining a sufcient sample of Indigenous
participants) is identied as a key challenge
in execution of this kind of data collection.
While there is a strong level of awareness
and advocacy of the need for longitudinal
measures which reect Indigenous experience,
the historical failure to address these
concerns means research in this eld has not

In seeking to extend the knowledge base

on Indigenous employment experience,
researchers must therefore balance a number
of priorities. These priorities include: the
achievement of statistical accuracy; ensuring
data is collected, collated and shared in a
manner which is constructive to Indigenous
communities needs; and ensuring data
collection is underpinned by conceptual
analysis which is relevant to Indigenous
experience. Further to this, researchers must
also consider how generating new data might
continue to offer scope for comparison with
mainstream labour market experience, so
that appropriate responses to alleviate socio
economic disadvantage might be developed
and implemented in a timely way.
KF2 In order to offer useful and
meaningful insights on genuine and
sustained labour market experience
and career formation, new data

10

signicantly advanced. As Lee and Miller

(1998) note, surveys which collect a range
of employment and unemployment status
variables have historically rarely included an
Indigenous identier. Further to this, they
note that even in situations where identiers
have been included, the Indigenous counts are
frequently too small to conduct a meaningful
analysis (Lee and Miller 1998).

geographic mobility, housing tenure type,

and family structure). The Census data has
also been used to generate such instruments
as the skill shortage and job prospects
matrices, by offering insights on the top jobs
(jobs experiencing strongest labour market
growth). This could be argued to offer some
insight on career viability and career change
within the labour market. However, a key
(and intractable) problem with Census data,
is the ve year timetable which underpins
its collection. While the Census appears to
be the only data source remotely close to
capturing a snapshot of Australias Indigenous
communities, its lack of timeliness makes it a
poor candidate for analysis of labour market
and career mobility.

ABS data on labour market participation

would, on the surface, appear to present the
most viable source of data on career formation
and development. The ABS has substantial
nancial resources, and (supercially at least)
appears best able to offer labour market wide
insights (national comparative data). The
ABS seeks to capture information on core
employment indicators including employment
status, changes in employment (by region, by
job type, by occupation, by age prole). This
information is also collected regularly (Labour
Force releases data on these issues quarterly,
and Education and Work provides annual data),
which supercially appears to offer the scope
for time series and trend analysis. However,
neither of these collections offer any insight
on patterns within Indigenous populations,
because of their limited use of Indigenous
identiers.

Other data sets, which offer longitudinal

insight, and dimensions of labour market
behaviour (such as HILDA) face similar
challenges. It is acknowledged by HILDA
researchers, that sample sizes of Indigenous
participants have been difcult to maintain,
with sample sizes for wave 4 data noted to be
particularly problematic (Watson 2006). It
appears that where HILDA has been useful,
is in exposing the shortcoming of surveys
which claim to represent a denitive account
of Indigenous experience. For example,
HILDA data has been used to highlight the
shortcomings of NATSISS, an ABS survey
which had claimed to offer more accurate
indicators of labour market measurement for
Indigenous workers and jobseekers (Gray and
Chapman 2006).

Turning to the Census as an alternative

source of data, also presents the researcher
with a number of dilemmas. As noted earlier,
problems of non-response and credible
collection overshadow the use of this data.
Putting these concerns aside momentarily
however, the Census does allow for some
(static) analysis of regional labour markets,
which may be critical for understanding the
experience of Indigenous Australians. In
addition, the Census offers greater scope to
provide details about key industries of regional
employment, aspects of regional working
conditions including hours and income, and
core demographic characteristics (such as
prevalence of languages other than English,

KF3 Data items capable of

insights on career and sustainable
employment are not currently
available, and their production is
likely to be costly. Literature and
qualitative interviews identify
a number of reasons for this
including: ux and change within
the labour market and resource
constraints associated with the

11

costs of data collection. In the

absence of viable data items on
career, longitudinal data is identied
by key experts as a possible way
forward. Longitudinal data, of the
kind required in this case, would
have a lead time of two years at a
minimum.

more expansive notion of job transition, and

a recognition that this transition is dynamic
and ongoing. In this notion, he highlights that
the concept of career maturity as a possible
way to identify successful or fruitful patterns
of employment within a vocation or stream.
Oppenheimer (1997) describes a dynamic
perspective of careers in the following way we
believe that no variable alone can adequately
describe career maturityrather a number of
variables and factors must be considered which
give insight to not only career entry status, and
if possible, long run market positionWe argue
that the nature of career transitions is complex
and often rather messy (Oppenheimer 1997:
314).

It is well noted within the literature that

working life in Australia has radically
changed in the last twenty years (Australia
at Work 1999). Researchers note shifts in
the pattern of labour market participation
in the form of higher rates of casual and non
standard work (Campbell 2004), workplace
restructuring which has seen a less direct
and less prolonged relationship between
employer and employee (Pocock et al 2005),
and less transparency in the conditions and
arrangements of employment generally
(Ellem et al 2005). While studies of the life
course and career development represented
a common focus of research in the 1970s and
80s, the breadth of change and variation in
the life course for many people means this
subject has been more difcult to capture and
track since the 1990s (NCVER 2010; Australia
at Work 1999). In addition, a lack of data
surrounds transitions to work, both within and
between different forms of work, particularly
for Indigenous peoples. Whether the notion of
employment stability and career stability are
dened by some common career milestones
(and preconditions), which transcend
workplace location, industry and context, is far
from well dened.

In rening the concept of career, the issue

of value and subjective judgements must
also be considered. In exploring the concept
of employment pathways, researchers have
tended to draw a distinction between work
which yields better returns for the individual
in the long term, and those that are labelled
poor labour market outcomes. This distinction
has been identied in a number of ways high
quality versus low quality jobs (Welshman
2008) or low skill and low pay trap jobs
(Hillage & Pollard 1999). In other words, as
Richardson (2002) notes, while many people
may begin in low wage jobs, particularly
after a period in welfare, a key question of
concern relates to who remains in low wage
jobs for the long term. While wages are
often used as a proxy for career potential,
most notably by the Job prospects matrix
which seeks to identify which jobs represent
positive career bets, this can also present a
somewhat skewed representation of career.
As Bretherton (2010) notes, while jobs such
as child care may be considered poor quality
jobs because of the low pay associated with
them, nevertheless the industry has relied on a
stable pool of committed and diligent workers
who self-identify as deeply career committed.
This indicates that the notion of career and
vocation are deeply in the eye of the beholder,

Moving beyond the denition of employment

status alone, there is a signicant body of
research which argues that the concept of
career requires more than the core categories
of analysis on which much labour market
participation analysis relies. In the US, labour
market researcher Oppenheimer (1997) notes
that employment status represent only a step,
and that career analyses require a wider and

12

and more subtle and attitudinal factors must

be reected in the analysis of career.

Indigenous labour force status might be

generated, however all of these data sources
face essentially the same core problems.
The Census, NATSISS, NHS and LFS face
methodological criticism over small sample
size, undercoverage, collection technique
(self-reporting techniques) and core problems
with the relevance of key indicators to reect
Indigenous experience and its diversity. The
geographical dispersion of the Indigenous
population provides substantial problems

Methodological choices from here

workplace versus labour market
insights
Research on labour market participation and
Indigenous Australians has been historically
undertaken in two main ways. Firstly, there
has been an attempt to understand macro
or large scale shifts and patterns in labour
market participation over time, in order to
make determinations about the likelihood
of employment and the preconditions for
employment. Secondly, there has been a
range of efforts to consider the experience of
employment by understanding the efforts to
alleviate unemployment. For these analyses,
a more structured and procedural approach to
both workplace and labour market programs
have formed the basis of analysis.

for standardised surveying methods as well.

According to Brent and Rogers (2008: 3) at
regional levels, many Indigenous populations
can be summarised as either geographically
clustered and relatively inaccessible, or
relatively accessible but geographically
dispersed. The challenges of documentation
and understanding in the eld of Indigenous
statistical exploration appears to be as Yahn
2009 notes a universal problem. Meerman
(2005) also identies the extensive attempts
internationally to generate a coherent
analytical framework for understanding social
exclusion and economic mobility amongst
Indigenous populations. A wide range of
studies cite a high degree of variability in
Indigenous population counts (Taylor and
Biddle 2008; Pool 1991; Norris 1990). This
includes studies of the Native American
populations in the US (Eschbach, Suppleand
& Snipp 1998), Canadian Inuit populations
(Smylie & Anderson 2006) and New Zealand
Maori population counts (Robson & Reid
2001). In Australia, the net undercount is
estimated to be in the order of 11-12 per cent
(Taylor & Biddle 2008). The magnitude of
this methodological challenge continues
to be asserted and debated, as Taylor and
Biddle ask the key question the analytical
and policy issues that arise from such high
levels of undercount revolve around one key
foundation question for users of Census data:
can we establish reliable measures of Indigenous
population change?. In its recent report,
the Productivity Commission notes that the

Labour market level insights what

might they tell us?
Research which provides a macro or broad
focus on patterns of employment amongst
Indigenous peoples has the potential to offer
great insight on how Australian society is
delivering or not delivering on key equity
outcomes. As Yu (2011) notes, the need
to establish accuracy is a constitutional
responsibility owed to all citizens. However,
in reality the delivery of macro indicators of
employment status which offer comparison
of Indigenous and non-Indigenous experience
have not been realised. The problems of
statistical accuracy and cultural relevance are
immense (as outlined above). The ABS has
even publicly acknowledged that their ability
to be able to collect data reliably in this eld
is beyond their current resource capability.
Four main data sources are provided by
the ABS from which national statistics on

13

most profound challenge in reaching targets

associated with the national closing the gap
strategy does not appear to willingness, nor
program resources, but poor data.

Workplace level insights what

insights might these provide?
Qualitative and quantitative approaches
have also been applied to examination of
Indigenous employment experience at a
more program or workplace focused level.
A methodological problem with analysis
of disparate programs is that the results
from very different labour market programs
are often aggregated in order to assess
the impact of labour market programs in
addressing key barriers to employment. In
research terms, this has included observing
the difference in employment outcomes for
higher and lower levels of education amongst
Indigenous populations (Hunter et al 1996),
and observing the outcomes associated
with interventions designed to reduce the
risk of long term unemployment (Dockery &
Milsom 2007). While these approaches have
proved useful to establishing relationships
between some variables which impact
employment experience, their ability to be
able to make insights on the longer term
impact for career development has been
limited. The deadweight loss, substitution and
displacement effect is noted by Cook (2008).
This study notes that the impact of labour
market programs on alleviating disadvantage is
difcult to determine, because those outcomes
recorded as positive may have occurred
irrespective of specic program participation
(2008a: 2).

In labour market terms, the range of problems

this poses is immense. Comparability
between labour markets has been named as a
particular problem (Morphy et al 2007), both
because of questions surrounding the cross
cultural validity of universal application of
employment and economic engagement and
activity categories (Smith et al 2008; Martin
et al 2002), and because of the difculty in
maintaining adequate sample sizes to ensure
data accuracy. In terms of insights useful
to the longer term patterns of employment,
and the ability to extract meaning using
Census data, the ABS acknowledges that
this is a problem in longitudinal terms. As
the ABS noted in a recent report Estimates
of labour market characteristics of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islanders cannot be compared
with previous estimates because of changes in
methodologies for estimates (ABS 2010: 2).
Macro level insights to Indigenous labour
market experience have also been provided
by examination of Indigenous labour market
program design, and other institutional data
(such as education or training enrolment
data). Analysis in this eld however, has
also faced methodological challenges, and is
limited in its representation of the range of
barriers experienced by Indigenous peoples
in accessing the labour market. Labour
market programs are highly varied, in their
philosophical underpinnings, design and
delivery (Calmfors 1994, Cook 2008). In terms
of education and training administrative
data, researchers have also faced problems
within interrogating these data sources for
the purposes of delivering career insight.
Once a student or client loses touch with an
educational institution, so too is the ability to
track their progress post-completion.

While the existence of barriers to labour

market participation is well acknowledged
by the literature, deeper clarication of
these barriers has been more limited.
Whiteside et al (2006) note that very few
assessments conducted at the workplacelevel have focused on ways to develop
workforce development capacity in a way
that empowers disadvantaged workers to
change conditions or expand the range
of employment choices available to them.

14

observation of multiple factors, and

their interconnection.

Studies at the workplace level have tended

to apply a qualitative approach, which seeks
to distinguish and compare between different
aspects of programs and initiatives. These
studies have the potential to deliver great
insights to core aspects or factors inuencing
the labour market outcomes for Indigenous
workers (workplace and demand factors)
however, in many cases this potential has
remained unrealised. This appears to occur
because the program itself often becomes the
focus of the analysis, and as Jones (2005)
concludes, research becomes a matter of
policy and procedural analysis with neither
the specic workplace nor individual featuring
as instrumental to the job outcome. This
approach is particularly problematic because
it limits the generalizability of ndings that
might be derived from these kinds of studies.
As Hoskins (2002) notes there is not one
model for best practice; rather there are a
variety of creative and interesting approaches.
This appears to be particularly the case for
best practice studies which are often highly
contextual, and the broader relevance of their
ndings are not identied and explored beyond
an industry or sectoral setting.

Four sets of factors appear to inuence job,

and indeed sustainable job outcomes. This
paper identies that four sets of factors, and
the counterbalance between these factors,
are important to the analysis. Supply versus
demand factors, barriers versus drivers of
change, implicit and explicit barriers and
labour market versus workplace insights are all
important to the analytical process.
This paper argues that in order to understand
how successful labour market transitions,
and indeed the formation and progression of
career occurs, research design must provide
the opportunity for the researcher to observe
all relevant factors impacting labour market
outcomes. In other words, the research must
be positioned to achieve an ideal or optimal
vantage point. This paper contends that
identication of labour market transitions
likely to yield positive career outcomes can
only come with a full understanding of the
factors that work to prevent, or enhance career
development. This means that conventional
research approaches which have sought to
deliver macro labour market perspectives on
the formation of career, or obversely, program
or workplace focused insights alone, can only
ever deliver part of the story.

KF4 Much research which aims

to deliver insights on Indigenous
workforce experience is guided by
an analytical framework skewed
towards supply side concerns. This
paper argues that multiple factors,
which are complexly interconnected,
produce labour market outcomes.
An alternative analytical approach
(4X4 model), which takes greater
account of this complexity, is
proposed. Four sets of factors
are identied as important to the
analysis. These four factors are
argued to work in counterbalance.
In designing a methodology,
researchers must ensure that the
vantage point of research permits

In addition, the eld of labour market analysis,

and more particularly the examination of
Indigenous employment experience within
this analysis, has faced some core challenges
in dening what and whom should fall
within the purview of analysis. In attempting
to characterise the nature of labour market
barriers faced by Indigenous workers and
job seekers, researchers face a dilemma
between specicity versus generalisation in
adopting an analytical approach. On one hand,
researchers must rightfully acknowledge the
immense diversity of economic and cultural
experience across and within Indigenous

15

communities Australia wide. On the other

hand, the need for stakeholders to develop
responses to barriers to labour market entry
has meant that researchers have sought
to comment meaningfully about whether
Indigenous peoples shares some common
barriers, so that this experience might be
contrasted or compared to mainstream
labour market experience. As research by
Generation One and NCVER (Dockery &
Milsom 2007) notes, meaningful analysis of
labour market programs and interventions
targeting Indigenous populations has been
thwarted by questions of whether Indigenous
or mainstream experience should form the
basis of analysis, and how the researcher
can understand concepts of worker,
Indigenous Australian, and Indigenous
worker simultaneously. In addition, the need
for research to consider drivers and factors
beyond labour market programs must also
be considered by the analysis, for as Dockery
& Milsom (2007) note, the eld of analysis
has been dominated by a gross outcomes
notion of labour market outcome, because the
culmination or end point of a labour market
program (ie completion) is typically used as the
reference point for analysis. For this reason,
this paper argues that a universal analytical
framework, which might be used to construct
questions about the context and drivers of
labour market experience for any worker,
represents the most useful way to consider the
factors which might enhance or impede labour
market access and advancement. This model
is outlined in more detail below.

shape labour market participation barriers

on one hand, and drivers on the other. These
barriers and drivers can also manifest at either
the labour market or local workplace level.
A review of literature in this eld identies that
the full range of factors that obstruct, or drive,
labour market experience must be considered
if the analysis seeks to be comprehensive.
Barriers to labour market participation for
Indigenous peoples can be either explicit or
implicit1. In addition, the drivers of labour
market participation can be qualitatively
different in form also. This paper argues that
drivers of labour market participation for
Indigenous peoples can be dened as either
demand or supply based. Ideally, in order to
afford the greatest level of insight, the ability
to make assessments on these factors as they
exist at both the workplace level and labour
market level is also important. In this way,
transparency of these factors will make the
ndings of any research generalizable, and
in a form in which the benets can be shared
with other key stakeholders in the eld. This
characterisation of the ideal analytical model
in this eld might be described as a 4X4
factor model (presented in diagram form
below). In addition, the ideal vantage point,
which allows the interconnection and inuence
of these different factors to be observed
simultaneously could be said to rest in the
middle of the model.
Diagram 1: The 4X4 factor model of analysis
of labour market participation

Barriers versus drivers of labour

market participation
This paper acknowledges the importance
of both labour market and workplace level
insights in the analysis of labour market
outcomes. This paper extends this distinction
further by arguing that two core conditions

1.

These factors are not mutually exclusive.

16

in professional and managerial positions).

Much policy design and program response
is designed to address explicit and supply
focused barriers to employment. This is
demonstrated in the many initiatives designed
to target and lift education levels amongst
Indigenous job seekers.

Explicit versus implicit barriers to

employment
Barriers to labour market participation for
Indigenous peoples can be distinguished
into two main types explicit and implicit. It
should also be noted that these barriers are
not mutually exclusive, and can be deeply
interconnected. The distinction between
these barriers, we argue, provides a way to
acknowledge that overt and covert forces can
impede labour market access.

Methodological approaches to
examining explicit barriers some key
concerns

Explicit barriers

While large scale data sets may offer the

opportunity to explore broad movements and
trends in occupation, industry and hours, this
opportunity has not been realised fully for
Indigenous Australians, because of credibility
and doubts over data. For example, the
notion of skill development or educational
attainment as a blanket indicator or positive
precondition for career development in the
eld of Indigenous labour market research
has been questioned. The Productivity
commission (2006) notes the great diversity
in the economic activities and labour market
compositions of Indigenous communities,
particularly those in regional and remote
areas, makes indicators in this context less
clear.

Explicit barriers include factors such as direct

discrimination (HREOC 2010), low levels of
education and training, and poor health and/
or disability (DEWRSB 1994 & DEWR 2010).
Examples of explicit or overt barriers might
include the ability to gain work being impeded
by a lack of mandatory training required
for a position, or a physical disability which
comprises capacity to work. At the time of the
last Census (2006), around 48 per cent of the
Indigenous workforce-aged population were
in employment. This compares to 72 per cent
for other Australians a gap of 24 percentage
points. Poorer educational outcomes, higher
crime rates, high rates of income support all
give insight to the barriers to labour market
access, and advancement. Lack of education
in particular is noted to be a major, and
explicit barrier to employment for Indigenous
Australians. Research has highlighted a
number of aspects of this disadvantage. The
probability of job retention, for example, is
lower for Indigenous peoples with a year 10
level education, when compared with those
students who complete to year 12 (CAEPR
2005). A gap in generic skills has also been
noted to impact the ability of disadvantaged
job seekers, including Indigenous workers, to
attain and retain work (Manufacturing Skills
Australia 2011). Indigenous peoples are also
under represented at the higher skill end
of the occupational hierarchy (for example

Implicit barriers
Implicit barriers can be just as inuential in
preventing or stiing employment opportunity.
However, these barriers can be signicantly
more difcult to identify, particularly if the
mode of research analysis is not calibrated to
collect information on these issues. The notion
of indirect discrimination for example, could be
considered an implicit barrier to employment
(HREOC 2009). CAEPR notes a range of
possible implicit barriers to work in the form
of low self condence, low levels of mobility
(linked to family obligations) and a lack of
routine. CAEPR describes these factors as
the the non-quantifiable institutional aspects of

17

Indigenous employment disadvantage (2000).

As Hunter et al (2000) note it is almost

impossible to construct a structural statistical
model of labour market transitions that will not
be sensitive to small changes in unemployment
history. Attempts to create a proxy form of
longitudinal study, for example in the form of
a synthetic panel data drawn from the Census,
have also faced signicant problems for similar
reasons. Few longitudinal studies have sought
to unpack, in detail, the range of barriers and
drivers that might impact career-oriented
employment.

Literature on the role of VET in alleviating

employment disadvantage also points to
a distinction between implicit and explicit
barriers to employment. An explicit barrier
may be lack of training, yet, a range of recent
studies identify that a range of disadvantaged
groups (Indigenous, non-English speaking
people, mature and retrenched workers)
may experience an additional labour market
barrier in the form of a generic skills gap,
despite being formally qualied (Bretherton
2010). Workers in this situation typically gain
employment, but cannot sustain employment.
This gap in baseline skills such as literacy,
numeracy and communication is less well
acknowledged in the literature, yet can pose a

The social welfare and income support

environment, which implies a necessity to
record an employment outcome by labour
market intermediaries, also demonstrates
the powerful distinction that must be drawn
between observing job transition and career
transition. For example, the resolution of a
barrier to employment may remain a barrier
to career formation. A scan of literature

profound barrier to employment, and ongoing

employment.

Methodological approaches to
examining implicit barriers some key
concerns

identies that the focus of much research

has not substantially developed the career
concept. Typically, research over-emphasises
the place and importance of supply focused
concerns as barriers to employment, to the
detriment of building knowledge on demand
side issues (Bretherton 2011). Historically,
these large scale comparisons and analyses
have not fully explored notions of career,
but have been structured around notions
of quite static states of employment and
unemployment. However, this literature review
contends that even with extensive and robust
improvements to the collection and validity of
data holdings, there needs to be a conceptual
shift in the focus of this research, in order to
provide a fully formed picture of pathways
to sustainable employment for Indigenous
workers. What qualitatively represents
productive steps forward in career terms, and
which transitions yield better longer term
outcomes, need to be better elucidated.

The contribution that longitudinal studies

might make to enhancing understanding
of Indigenous labour market experience,
particularly if they incorporate variables
capable of observing career transitions, is
signicant. While large scale employment
studies may shed light on some baseline
determinants of employment (eg education
or skills formation), they shed little light on
determinants of career. Some advocate
this kind of insight can only truly be achieved
with longitudinal data, but that current
approaches require signicant renement. For
instance, attempts to use longitudinal data
for this purpose have so far faced signicant
methodological challenges. The DEWRSB
longitudinal study for example, has faced low
response rates, and the short time frame of
the survey means that longer term dynamics
(necessary to offer insights on the formation
and maintenance of career) are not observable.

18

work) and behaviour (exhibiting characteristics

consistent with norms of job seeker
behaviour including frequency of job search
and application) (Bretherton 2010). All of
these factors are inherently supply focused
in their understandings of labour market
sustainability. However, recent research
highlights that labour market readiness, and
not just job seeker readiness, must hold some
place in the analysis. In other words, the
readiness of the labour market to absorb labour
is poorly addressed or left unacknowledged in
approaches to labour market marginalisation
(Bretherton 2010).

Supply versus demand

understandings and assumptions
about drivers of labour market
participation and change
In discussions of employment barriers,
and opportunity, this paper argues that
understandings are shaped profoundly by an
overemphasis on supply side factors, while
demand side factors receive little attention. In
a core policy document outlining the strategic
efforts to address labour market disadvantage,
the Department of Families, Housing,
Community services and Indigenous affairs
(2011) notes a wide range of determinants
of employment including educational
attainment, literacy and numeracy, location,
and employment status of family members.
The Department notes that addressing these
factors will unlock barriers to employment and
energies must be focused on these areas to
increase employment (2011). Without exception
however, these factors pertain only to supply
side factors. The only acknowledgement of
demand side factors comes in the form of
macro labour market challenges, in particular,
the higher unemployment rates which
characterise some local (regional and remote)
labour markets. However, the local workplace
context, and how demand side factors might
shape employment disadvantage receive little
recognition.

This paper argues that a predominantly supply

side focus can lead to misleading assumptions
about the relative inuence of demand versus
supply factors, and the role these respective
barriers play in the ability of Indigenous
workers to establish and maintain a labour
market foothold. This over-emphasis and
over-attention to supply issues, can lead to
spurious conclusions because of the implicit
assumptions about behaviour and motivation.
Some argue that the challenge of labour
market entry is solely explained through
supply side factors. As Hughes states the
combination of supply factors has stalled the
move of Indigenous people into the labour force
(Hughes 2010). However, employer behaviour,
poor recruitment and induction design, failure
to accurately clarify the skill needs of a
workforce, and poor workforce development
strategy can all impact the ability of a labour
market to absorb and retain labour. This
imbalance in the analysis provides no broader
conceptual framework through which the
experience of barriers can be understood, and
ultimately responded to. Without identication
of the source of the labour market barrier,
policy makers are limited in their ability to
design, target and shape an effective and
appropriate response.

Understandings of labour market

disadvantage are overwhelmingly grounded
in the analysis of supply factors, and this
is approach is not conned to the analysis
of Indigenous experience. The concept of
labour underutilisation itself is underpinned
by assumptions about the demographic,
psychological and behavioural prole
which predisposes individuals to labour
market success, or failure. In particular, the
experience of underutilisation is characterised
by a cross section of three factors motivation
(desire to work), willingness (availability to

19

after apprenticeship completion remains.

Similarly, whether workplaces are perceived as
comfortable by the employee, whether there
are sound work-life practices, or whether there
is an element of discrimination present at a
workplace also needs further investigation.
The role of cultural alignment, and the
willingness of workplaces to adjust and modify
practice in order to accommodate diverse
groups of workers (ethnicity, languages other
than English, and other social norms) must
also be considered within examinations of
barriers to employment (Bretherton 2010).

Methodological approaches which

enhance understanding of demand
side factors
IAs it stands, very little is known about
demand side behaviours and the wide
catchment of issues that shape absorptive
capacity of a labour market. The issue of
vacancy rates represent an important part of
this debate, as academics note that vacancy
rates may not necessarily indicate a labour
shortage, but rather poor recruitment and
induction practices (Buchanan et al 2006). A
preliminary analysis of the often considered
seminal DEWRSB longitudinal labour market
survey, indicates a predominance of supply
focused factors included in the range of
options. Further to this, it is important to note
that where demand side factors are recorded,
they could be more accurate described as
supply side perspectives and ruminations of
demand side behaviour. In the main reasons
for non-participation in the labour market,
respondents identify as many as 18 reasons
for non-participation including: own poor
health or disability; carer responsibilities;
study; impact on welfare payments; inadequate
skills training or experience; language; access
to child care; transport costs; home duties;
and cultural reasons. Only a handful of these
factors however deal with demand side issues
such as no jobs in my line of work or area, or
employers think I am too young.

Analysis of demand side factors, must also be

informed by the knowledge that the labour
market itself has changed. The transformation
of the labour market (changes to the pattern
of employment from permanent to casual
and from a lifelong job to multiple jobs)
means that variables that might once have
represented useful tools through which to
observe career development, may now offer
less insight on the question of successful
career transitions. For example, in historical
terms the type of employment engagement
(permanent versus casual) might once have
represented a useful way to observe whether a
worker had transitioned to more stable forms
of employment and therefore a career path.
Historically, it could be argued that the notion
of career was connected with permanency
of employment, with incremental steps in
a career ladder being both well-dened
and often with a single employer (ACIRRT
1998). However, broad changes in the pattern
of labour market participation means the
interpretation of these indicators and trends
have become more complex. Since the 1990s,
it is well acknowledged that the fundamental
underpinnings of a working life in Australia
have changed, with higher rates of casual
employment (Campbell 2005) and industry
transition (CSHISC 2009) now forming a
regular part of working experience. Indeed
the coining of the term multiple careers

Developing understanding around the concept

of career must also occur in conjunction
with examination of demand side drivers of
employment. Hunter, Gray and Chapman
(2006) note that there must be some
acknowledgement of a career outcome, as
opposed to a job outcome, and that these
analyses must extend beyond the attributes
of the individual in understanding how and
why these transitions are made possible.
For example, Hunter et al (2000) note that
further research is needed to understand
why a signicant drop-off in employment

20

reects this adaptation (Alboher 2007). This

can mean that a worker undertakes more than
one career simultaneously, or embrace of a
new career even after signicant training and
career achievement has been achieved in a
prior stream of learning (Teixeria & Gomes
2000: 78). In some cases, this can occur
because of necessity as larger global shifts can
impact employment patterns and economic
change, and prompt sectoral growth and
decline at the nation state level (Townsend
2003). Research overseas, particularly in the
US, identies that the employer appears to be
the critical stakeholder in the emergence and
maintenance of career pathways, particularly
for those workers at the lower end of the
occupational hierarchy (Gash & Mack 2010).
The changing composition of the labour market
means that new variables which might offer
insights on career and positive job transitions
need much more exploration.

operations to include a formal business or

social enterprise, and thereby actually provide
and expand labour market opportunities for
local disadvantaged groups (Bretherton 2010).
While intermediaries are often criticised
because they fail to adequately address
Indigenous need (Hunter & Jordan 2009),
they are also applauded in some cases for
their ability to develop culturally appropriate
strategies to enhance outcomes for Indigenous
clients, particularly when Indigenous
communities are engaged as key stakeholders
(Jones 2010; Hoskins 2002). The work of Gray
and Chapman (2005) for example, notes that
the presence of an Indigenous case manager
within the structure of an intermediary yields
substantially better employment outcomes for
clients. This indicates that while labour market
intermediaries can produce both positive and
negative outcomes for Indigenous job seekers
and labour force entrants, in either case, their
role can be dened as instrumental.

KF5 In research terms, labour

market intermediaries are
positioned to offer a unique vantage
point of many of these factors
simultaneously, positioned as they
are between the interests of the
employer (demand) and employee
(supply) sides of the labour market.
This literature review identies that
labour market intermediaries, as agents or
gatekeepers of supply and demand, require
particular investigation. Indeed, using the
4X4 factor model, intermediaries appear to
be uniquely placed to offer perspectives on
multiple factors simultaneously. The literature
in this eld identies that intermediaries
have a critical role in mediating and
brokering employment, and ultimately in
either ameliorating or exacerbating labour
market disadvantage for Indigenous job
seekers. A recent report on labour market
intermediary behaviour indicates that some
intermediaries actively engage in shaping
or lifting labour demand by expanding their

21

22

that were most likely to provide information

relating specically to Indigenous Australians
and work to assess the viability of reporting
regularly on Indigenous job and/or career
transitions. In total ve different instruments
were examined and discussed with key
informants:

QUANTITATIVE APPROACHES
TO INDIGENOUS CAREER
ANALYSIS: ENHANCING
STATISTICAL INSIGHTS
INTO INDIGENOUS CAREER
EXPERIENCE

The Census of Population and Housing

(the Census), ABS;

This section examines options for furthering

the statistical analysis of Indigenous careers
and sustainable employment outcomes. First,
the paper takes inventory of the current store
of national data, and considers its viability
in investigation of career and job transitions.
Second, by-product data (unrened data
that exists, but has been collected for an
unrelated purpose) will be considered by the
analysis. For the purposes of this research,
AES administrative data is considered
as a case study. The AES is an excellent
site for examination because the agency
holds signicant data records (spanning
approximately nine years, and including a
potential data pool of c.8000 Indigenous
subjects). Third, the section outlines in
general what would be required to improve
large scale statistical understanding of
Indigenous careers and employment. Finally,
all the options are assessed in terms of their
relative impact and cost.

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait

Islander Social Survey (NATSISS), ABS;
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS) ABS;
Labour Force Characteristics of Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander Australians,
Estimates from the Labour Force Survey
(Indigenous Labour Force) ABS; and
Longitudinal Survey of Australian Youth
(LSAY), ASSDA.

These surveys were identied by key

informants (senior ABS advisors, statisticians
and academics) as those most likely to provide
national Indigenous employment data. The
Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in
Australia survey (HILDA) was identied as a
potential source of information (particularly
as it is longitudinal) but the limited Indigenous
Australian sample was seen as signicantly
limiting the potential to examine Indigenous
Australian experience. The general
observations made in this paper about the
LSAY are equally valid for HILDA.

KF6 There is currently no

established national survey
instrument which can offer the
insights necessary to understand
successful career transitions and
outcome for Indigenous peoples.
The notional goal of a biannual
or biennial employment report
on Indigenous career transitions,
which would be both reliable
and insightful, is not currently
attainable using the existing suite
of data sources.

In summary these investigations conrmed

the observations made in the literature
reviewed earlier in this report. In short, there
is little to no scope for current national data
collections to provide analysis of either job
or career transitions. For a regular report
to be generated using national data, a new

In this phase of the scoping study researchers

investigated the national survey instruments

23

instrument would be required. This instrument

would need to have the following attributes:
statistical reliability; contain data items
appropriate to notions of job and/or career
transitions; be longitudinal in design; and run
frequently enough to allow for regular/timely
data collection and reporting. Unfortunately,
while each instrument investigated possessed
one or two of these qualities, no one
instrument encompassed them all. Critically,

none of the current data sources provide

variables that deal directly with notions of
career. A comparison of the data sources is
made in the following table.

Table 1: Comparison of surveys: strengths and weaknesses

Instrument

Census,
5 year
intervals

Population

National, NonATSI and ATSI

Reportable
sub-population

Indigenous by
state, region,
postcode, age,
gender

Various
Indigenous
subpopulations

Work themes

National ATSI,
limited nonIndigenous
comparisons

NATSISHS,
6 years
intervals, (3
years after
NATSISS)

National ATSI,
limited nonIndigenous
comparisons

Various
Indigenous
subpopulations

Limited

Indigenous
Labour Force,
annual

National
Non-ATSI
(monthly);
ATSI (annually)

Indigenous by
state, region,
age, gender,

Very basic
labour market
status

National ATSI
and Non-ATSI
youth

15-25 years
old only, best
reported by
numbers not
proportions
(nonrepresentative
sample)

Various

Various

24

Strengths

Weaknesses

Estimate of
population and
population bench
marking; local
level reporting of
occupation and
industry

Point-in-time;
limited work
variables

Various
Very limited;
Current job
tenure

Rich social
indicators,
including work;
and Indigenous
sub-populations

Point-in-time,
limited nonIndigenous
comparisons;
limited career
variables

None

Point-in-time.
Health indicators, limited work
basic employment variables, limited
data
non-Indigenous
comparisons

None

Regularity of
reporting

Point-in-time;
unrepresentative,
limited work
variables

Some

Longitudinal,
thereby tracking
transitions

Young and
unrepresentative
sample of
Indigenous
population

Basic labour
market status,
None
occupation and
industry

NATSISS
6 year
intervals, (3
years after
NATSIHS)

LSAY, annual

Career
themes

The most reliable data among the instruments

investigated is generated by the Census,
however the data items themselves are
of limited use other than to enumerate
the best estimates of the Indigenous
Australian population, and how very general
characteristics compare with the whole
population. The data items relating to
employment are not suitable for investigating
transitions or understanding Indigenous
experience to any great depth. It is, however,
critical in providing the benchmark population
gures for other statistical studies of the
Indigenous Australian population. It also
allows for quite rened regional reporting
of demographic shifts, but offers little to no
insight on successful transitions within the
labour market for individuals.

means that reporting is not an accurate

representation of Indigenous experience.
Rather, it is a source of information about
the 300 or so Indigenous participants in the
survey and does examine early transitions into
and out of work for those individuals. However,
their experiences cannot be generalised.
The most regular time series instrument is
derived annually from the Labour Force survey
of a representative sample of the whole
population. An Indigenous identier question
in the survey allows for some Indigenous
specic reporting by combining the monthly
data at the end of each year. However,
there are very few reportable items, none of
which illustrate transitions, and there remain
signicant questions over the reliability of the
data for Indigenous-focused analysis.

The richest data that describes the experience

of Indigenous Australians can be found in the
National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Social Survey. However as a point-in-time
survey it does little to illuminate labour market
transitions or trajectories. In other words it
cannot map the experience of individuals over
time, rather, it reports indicators and how they
can change in a time series. It does provide
a much more nuanced picture of different
groups of Indigenous Australians and has
a considerably larger store of variables to
enable creative analysis. Its use is limited for
reliable comparisons with the non-Indigenous
population.

The following section provides a snap shot of

the selected national survey instruments and
a brief overview of the most relevant variables
for reporting.

The Census of Population and Housing

(the Census), ABS
The Census aims to provide a count of
the Australian population and its general
characteristics. The instrument, which
is administered every 5 years (the next
taking place in August 2011), offers very
little opportunity to investigate notions of
career. The variables that describe work are
very general and do not lend themselves to
in-depth analysis regarding employment.
While the Census is the best data source for
capturing a snapshot of Australias Indigenous
population, its lack of timeliness makes it
a poor candidate for analysis of the labour
market. However, this is an important data set
because it provides the strongest estimates
available for describing basic demographics for

The most methodologically sound data for the

purposes of investigating transitions in careers
or jobs, is generated by the Longitudinal
Survey of Australian Young People. This
survey also includes a rich range of variables
but is extremely limited because participants
drop out of the study at 25 years of age,
and the Indigenous sample is small and
unrepresentative. Raw number comparisons
can be made with the non-Indigenous
population within the same survey population.
The nature of the Indigenous sample

25

of regional working conditions including hours

and income, as well as demographics (eg
prevalence of those speaking languages other
than English, geographic mobility, housing
tenure type, and family structure). While this
information provides a regional context for
labour demand and supply the static or pointin-time nature of the data set does not lend
itself to interpretations of work mobility and
what work/job/career pathways individuals
may follow. This would require a longitudinal
study, where the participants were tracked
over time.

the Indigenous Australian population, keeping

in mind the limitations described earlier in
this paper. The headline variables include
population, age distribution, location by state,
and whether located in an urban, regional or
remote area. Variables that are reportable for
the Indigenous population that relate to work
include:
Occupation
Occupational distribution
Industry of Employment
Public/private employer
Labour Force Status (employed,
unemployed, not in the labour force)

National Aboriginal and Torres Strait

Islander Social Survey (NATSISS),
ABS

Labour Force Status of Parents/Partners

in Families
Hours worked (weekly hours the week
before the census, and range*)

This is a rich data source looking specically at

the Indigenous Australian population. However
it does suffer from some sampling deciencies
requiring that data be reported and used with
caution3. In the absence of other material this
ABS product does provide a signicant number
of variables that describe and contextualise
Indigenous experiences of work, life and
wellbeing. The NATSISS takes place every
6 years with the last survey administered in
2007/2008.

Total Personal Income (weekly)

Education completion rates
Place of Work
Unpaid Assistance to a Person with a
Disability
Voluntary Work for an Organisation or
Group
*Can derive part time and fulltime status for those who work
using multiple variables

As this is a study of the Indigenous population,

comparisons between sub-sections of the
Indigenous population are possible. The
strength of this approach is that it provides
some evidence describing the diversity
of Indigenous experiences rather than
instruments with limited samples that tend to
report a singular Indigenous experience.

The primary strength of the Census data is

its relative reliability when reporting on the
Indigenous population and comparing that
experience with non-Indigenous or whole
population results2. It also has great potential
to describe characteristics down to a very
local area. In this respect, the Census may
provide a more reliable context for analysis
than other instruments by providing details of
key industries of regional employment, aspects

It is not generally feasible to compare these

Indigenous specic results with other whole

2.

Keeping in mind the limitations of those comparisons where the variables are designed to reect a non-Indigenous prole
rather than an Indigenous specic one.

3.

In particular, the ABS report that the sampling strategy, while complex, resulted in under-coverage of the Indigenous population by approximately 6 per cent. It should be noted that this is superior to any other national data sets in terms of reliability
and representation with the exception of the Census.

4.

http://abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/4714.0Appendix12008?opendocument&tabname=Notes&prodno=4714.0&
issue=2008&num=&view=

26

population counts in other surveys. Questions

of compatibility (that is, variables that match
across data sets) as well as comparability
(that is, valid populations and survey methods
for the purpose of reliable comparison) are
technically difcult to resolve. However the
ABS reports that some data variables are
comparable with a set of instruments they
identify4.

you cannot examine whether individuals have

been promoted or whether/when they received
training over that period, or whether or how
they have moved from one job to another. The
following work factors, and the associated
variables, are available for investigation:
Attachment to the labour market: Employed;
unemployed; fulltime; part time, looking for
work, not looking for work, discouraged from
looking for work

A major issue with the NATSISS is that it

is conducted every 6 years. However, it
should also be noted that the types of social
indicators included in the survey are generally
slow to change. The nature of the instrument
lends itself to reporting deeper insights rather
than rapid changes, such as transitions within
and between employment experiences.

Employed persons: Hours; whether work

allows for cultural responsibilities; more than
one job; employment categories (permanent;
temporary; seasonal; part time; fulltime; casual
etcetera); occupation; industry (non-remote
only); time in current job; hours preferences;
age when commenced paid employment; total
time spent in paid employment

NATSISS covers the following demographic and

social themes in its instrument:

Unemployed persons: Duration of

unemployment; nature of any difculty
nding work; reasons for not looking for a job;
whether looking for work in the last 12 months;
whether used employment services in last 12
months; whether needed employment services
in the last 12 months; reasons did not use
employment services in the last 12 months

Population characteristics
Language and culture
Social capital
Life experiences
Health
Education
Work

While there is limited capacity to use the

NATSISS to investigated career transitions,
it provides otherwise unavailable information
relating to the nature of Indigenous
Australians attachment to the labour market.
In particular, it can be used to investigate
barriers to the labour market, indicators of
underemployment, and experiences of labour
market assistance. While these factors
are derived from a supply-side perspective
(that is, from the individuals experience and
perception) this instrument does provide
some capacity to examine associated demandside pressures on Indigenous employment

Income and nances

Housing and mobility
Transport
Information technology
Safety, crime and justice
Within these thematic areas there are a series
of variables that examine work experiences.
As the NATSISS is not a longitudinal study
there is little prospect of using the information
to analyse issues of career. As with the
Census it provides point-in-time data so, for
example, while it can tell you about the length
of time someone has spent in their current
job, it cannot tell you how the experience of
that job has changed over time. For example

prospects. In addition there appears to be

latitude to examine employment factors (from
both the supply and demand sides) and how

27

they may relate to Indigenous wellbeing.

These issues are discussed in greater detail
below.

Employment factors and relationship

to wellbeing
Work has been done by both the ABS and
the Centre for Aboriginal Economic Research
(CAEPR) using the NATSISS to assess factors
associated with Indigenous Australians and
their well-being. To this end a framework
to analyse wellbeing has been designed.
There may be some latitude to use a similar
conceptual and statistical strategy to
assess employment factors (including nonmainstream work) and their association with
the wellbeing of Indigenous Australians. A
separate and in-depth scoping of the specic
variables, analytical design and statistical
reliability would have to be undertaken.

Indicators of barriers to the labour

market for Indigenous Australians
This is an important policy issue. There
are personal reasons for constrained
labour market options including access
to child care, the need to undertake other
non-paid work activities, and unsuitable
skills, but there is ample reason to believe
that demand-side factors are playing a
signicant part. Demand side factors include
limited job availability, jobs with inadequate
or unsuitable hours, and experiences of
discrimination for the Indigenous job seeker
or worker. This instrument allows for some
examination of barriers to employment for
Indigenous Australians, and for that to be
tracked, in aggregate, over the longer period,
remembering that currently the NATSISS is
planned for every 6 years.

The National Aboriginal and Torres

Strait Islander Health Survey
(NATSIHS), ABS
The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Health Survey (NATSIHS) is conducted
in between each NATSISS and is planned to
take place every 6 years. The last survey
took place in 2004/2005. The timeframes
of the two instruments are coordinated to
help manage participant fatigue among the
Indigenous Australian population, with one or
the other of the Indigenous specic surveys
taking place every 3 years. .

Indicators of underemployment for Indigenous

Australians
Variables that establish preferences around
working hours allow for investigation of
some aspects of under-employment among
Indigenous workers to establish the extent of
demand-side factors impacting on attachment
to the labour market. For example there is
a variable that allows us to look at whether
individuals want more, fewer or the same
number of hours.

There is very little that is useful in terms of

analysing employment in the NATSIHS other
than very basic demographic details relating
to work, income and unemployment. Many
of the variables may be examined in relation
to health factors. For example there may be
some latitude to assess the links between
occupations held by Indigenous workers and
their propensity to take time off due to illness,
or the relative likelihood of sustaining a work
related injury. As with the NATSISS there
is capacity to compare sub-populations of
Indigenous experience but limited capacity to
compare those experiences with

Indicators of experiences of labour market

assistance
There is also potential to investigate the
relationship that different groups of
Indigenous people have with service providers,
including those providing labour market
assistance. They include looking at the
frequency of use as well as the reasons
people without jobs do not use employment
support services.

28

non-Indigenous ones. There are no variables

that directly relate to career or job transitions.
The most relevant variables fall into the
following areas:

There are signicant limitations associated

with the sample for Indigenous populations,
with potential problems of representativeness
and accuracy for the remote Indigenous
population in particular5. The sample is

Education: Current study; highest year of

school completed; educational attainment

sourced from specic remote population

clusters rather than sampled from across
clusters of remote Indigenous populations.
Labour market conditions can be markedly
different between remote communities,
thereby skewing the results to the experiences
of the targeted population. This would have
implications in terms of a time series where
any uctuations discernible might be as a
result of changing population samples (that is,
moving from surveying remote communities
with employment opportunities to surveying
communities very limited or no employment
opportunities) rather than reecting actual
changes across the Indigenous population.

Employment: Labour force status (fulltime/

part time); working arrangements (waged
or otherwise); occupation; industry of
employment; industry sector; hours worked;
type of shift work ; duration of unemployment
Income Source(s) of cash income: Main
source of cash income; type of pension, benet
or allowance; gross cash income
It is clear that the richness of the NATSISS
in terms of work and life analysis is not
repeated in the NATSIHS. Consequently three
yearly reporting of the Indigenous population
would be possible for very basic employment
variables, with a greater degree of detail
reportable every six years upon the completion
of the NATSISS.

The ABS uses the data to report estimates

of the number and proportion of Indigenous
Australians who are employed, unemployed
and not in the labour force. The reporting
is undertaken annually, although there were
no estimates derived in 2008. This enables,
within the constraints already outlined, for
reporting of changes in the labour market
status of Indigenous workers

Labour Force Characteristics of

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander
Australians, Estimates from the
Labour Force Survey (Indigenous
Labour Force), ABS

In this publication the ABS also provide

comparisons of labour market status of
Indigenous Australians with the labour market
status of the whole Australian population
by replicating the method that annualises
the monthly labour force gures. There
are, however, questions as to the reliability
of those comparisons. We know from the
Census that the Indigenous population
is structured very differently from the
whole Australian population, with the age
prole and the locational distribution of

Indigenous Labour Force data is an annual

compilation of the monthly labour force
statistics to enable a sample size that is
adequate to report on basic labour force
characteristics of the Indigenous population.
However, the sample size is small and data
needs to be treated with considerable caution
in terms of reliability.

5.

Which according the Labour Force statistics, accounts for 22 per cent of the Indigenous Australian population.

6.

The Indigenous population aged 65 years and over accounted for 5% of the total Indigenous population aged 15 years and
over in 2009, the corresponding proportion was 16% for the non-Indigenous population. ..About one-quarter (22%) of Indigenous people aged 15 years and over lived in Remote areas in 2009. In comparison only 2% of non-Indigenous people aged 15
years and over lived in Remote areas in 2009. (ABS, 2009, Catalogue 6287.0)

29

Indigenous Australians showing very different

characteristics. There are far fewer Indigenous
Australians over 65 years of age than in
the general population, and there is a much
higher proportion of Indigenous Australians
that live in remote locations than is the case
amongst the whole population6. Rather
than standardising the gures to even out
those differences the ABS suggests caution,
particularly when reporting proportional
comparisons that would obscure the
structural differences.

adequately extended population-wide. Second,

it is limited to those who are students at the
time of the initial survey. The Census (2006)
indicates that 16.3 percent of the Indigenous
population 15 years and over either did not go
to school or did not complete higher than Year
8. Consequently, the LSAY sample excludes
a signicant proportion of Indigenous youth.
Finally, the LSAY sample, which cuts out at
25 years of age, is useful for an analysis of
the entry to career paths for young people
but does not address career experiences for
Indigenous Australians over the age of 25.
Young people (particularly those that are still
in education) have their labour market status
constrained. This is particularly relevant in
this age group so would skew the results in
terms of reasons for working/not working in
particular patterns.

There appears to be very little latitude, given

the questions that are asked and the quality
of the sampling, to report data beyond that
already provided in ABS catalogues. There
are no explicit variables that illuminate
issues associated with career transitions or
job transitions. At best they provide a very
general overview of employment participation
rates of Indigenous Australians with signicant
questions hanging over reliability.

Those aged between 15 and 24 form around

19 per cent of the Indigenous population, or
some 86,455 individuals. The LSAY sample
of Indigenous youth is relatively very small,
and suffers from substantial attrition. These
limitations severely curtail the usefulness
of the LSAY dataset in analysing the labour
market trajectories of the Indigenous
population. However, for this limited number
of individuals, the richness of the LSAY
longitudinal data may nonetheless assist
more detailed analysis. The dataset reveals
important and otherwise unmeasured
indicators of mobility and motivation. For
example, variables for respondents who left
school fall into the following main topic areas
of relevance:

Longitudinal Survey of Australian

Youth (LSAY), ASSDA
The current Longitudinal Survey of Australian
Youth (LSAY) commenced in 1995 and surveys
individuals annually as they move from their
mid-teens to mid-twenties. The data set aims
to study the transition of students from school
to work or further study. It is sampled to
reect the distribution of students by state,
and by school sector (Government, Catholic
and Independent) within the representative
population. The data can be accessed via
the Australian Social Science Data Archive
(ASSDA).

Employment: employment characteristics;

time worked; wages and benets; when
started and left work; reasons for leaving
work; employment while at school; post-school
employment; job training, job satisfaction;
reasons for leaving work; and perceptions
about work.

The LSAY dataset is limited in three crucial

respects for reporting Indigenous experiences.
First, the sample is not designed to reect
a representative Indigenous population, and
therefore analysis of LSAY sample cannot be

30

requirements. There are two DEEWR forms

(the Participant Commencement Advice Form,
and the Participant Employment Record
form) used by AES eld ofcers to record this
information. This information is then coded
and entered to enable basic retrieval by both
DEEWR and the AES. The system currently
generates reports on the number of clients
who achieve employment, and those who
have then gone on to reach 13 and then 26
weeks of on-going employment7 and can be
broken down by the responsible AES ofce
and the relevant program (group training or
recruitment services).

Not in employment: whether they were

looking for work; job search activity details;
problems looking for work; main activity while
not in the labour force; and respondents and
their intentions for seeking employment or
commencing study.
The advantage of such data is the ability to
track an individual over the course of eleven
years, and gain some insight with respect
to the motivations behind each transition.
However, as mentioned above, this analysis
cannot be extended to either more mature
individuals or to the Indigenous population
more generally. The LSAY dataset is therefore
best used in conjunction with other available
data sources, providing a much needed
perspective of transition and pathways.

It is important to note that other information

is generated by eld ofcers using AES forms
(known as the monitoring and/or client visit
forms) that help to guide their interactions
with employees and employers. On face value
the insights generated by these interviews
might enhance orderly reection on AES
practice, as well as providing useful data
on employer and employee experiences.
Closely evaluating the quality associated with
each of these data items, and the ability for
alignment between them, was beyond the
scope of this report. This is largely because it
is our understanding that this potentially rich
information, is not data entered for retrieval.
Rather the actual records of interview
are scant, and attached as biographic
holdings associated with the le of individual
clients. It is also our understanding that the
technological platform would not be suited to
easy analysis of this type of data, were it to be
entered in the current system.

KF7 It is possible that individual

organisations may be able to
develop their own evaluative
instruments that could offer
insight on career outcomes for
their own Indigenous constituents
(clients, employees). However, this
would take signicant work at the
institutional level to explore the
capacity to deliver outcome-based
statistical indicators.
Work was undertaken in this phase of the study
to investigate the possibility of producing
useful reports from AES information, or by
supplementing AES current data collection
procedures to allow for that. Interviews were
conducted with an IT specialist and a regional
manager from the AES to look at the reporting
platform as well as the operations that
generate data entry and reporting.

AES untapped data

The current AES data collection and reporting

system is designed primarily to facilitate
compulsory reporting to the Department of
Education and Employment and Workplace
Relations (DEEWR) to satisfy funding

7.

There appears to be some potential to build on

the information that is currently being collected
by the AES or to store the data in ways that are
more amenable to data analysis. This can be
done by expanding on the current data collection

The DEEWR pro-forma also requires that where employment for the participant has ceased, that a reason be given as to why.
However, our understanding is that this is not recorded for retrieval in the AES data system.

31

and reporting procedures, changing the current

data storage system, and gathering new material
currently latent in the organisation.

of insight relating to career transitions and

barriers. In an environment where this type
of data is limited, it is worth considering the
practical implications of turning that raw data
into a useable store of information. As is
described in the 4X4 model, intermediaries
have a particularly favourable vantage point
from which to view the supply and demand
side dynamics, as well as explicit and implicit
barriers to employment for Indigenous
Australians. In its current form, analysis of
this AES material would require resource
intensive and time consuming coding. It
appears most of the documentation is
handwritten and then scanned for storage
on the individual client le. The information
would have to be transferred into a searchable
text format, stored within a purpose specic
software application, and ideally, coded
appropriately to enable targeted retrieval. It
may be feasible to commence a process of
collecting and keeping material in new ways,
to enable analysis into the future, if the cost
of dealing with the backlog is prohibitive8. For
example, if the information was data entered
rather than hand written, les might be kept
in an Nvivo software platform (or something
similar), and undergo basic coding. This would
enable the collection of longitudinal qualitative
data describing the employment experience
from the employer and employee perspective
over the period of engagement with AES. The
Nvivo system, which is essentially a document
management system, would still allow retrieval
of specic client les and would provide
the added benet of analysing the material
in different ways, as long as the categories
guiding interrogation were settled and coded
appropriately.

Expanding the range of reportable

variables:
There appears to be some capacity for further
employment milestones to be recorded in the
current AES data system. Currently there
are three main milestones relevant to DEEWR
funding and retrievable in the IT platform:
entry into employment, achieving 13 weeks
in a job, and achieving 26 weeks in a job. The
AES system also automates reminders to
eld ofcers to make contact with clients
(and their employers) at 35, 52 and 65 week
milestones respectively. This provides a
trigger for collecting and recording further job
tenure information at these points. It would
require eld ofcers to perform extra data
entry. The technology platform would also
have to be assessed for its capacity to store
and report this extra information. Undertaking
these extra data entry steps would appear to
be a low cost means of improving internal and
external reporting of employment tenure for
AES participants. Unfortunately the variables
for reporting the characteristics of jobs and
participants appear to be signicantly limited
in the current IT platform. Closer investigation
would have to be undertaken (with IT experts
internally and externally) to assess the viability
of expanding the platform to allow for more
nuanced reporting of employment outcomes
and patterns. For example, it would be useful
for the system to record client experiences
across different jobs, and industry and
occupational patterns of tenure for each client.

Potential to store qualitative data in

retrievable formats:

Additional data collection strategies:

The information that AES eld ofcers

gather has the potential to be a rich source

Any study of the career dynamics for

Indigenous workers would be best achieved
by looking into issues from a supply as well as

8.

It is important to note that at the time of printing, the AES had initiated the nal roll out of a National Customer Records Management System which will focus on national and local qualitative data collection. The AES also notes that the opportunity to
embed this, with a coded national system which is recognised by the ABS and other collection agencies, is essential.

32

demand perspective. The AES client base (of

employees as well as employers) provides a
centralised source of recruitment for such a
study. It is also highly likely that eld ofcers
in intermediaries such as the AES embody
tacit information that might be of great use
to understanding notions of career and the
realities of job transitions. This would require
collection of data from eld ofcers via a
formal (ie collection protocols well dened)
and regular research process to capture those
insights. Such an endeavour would require
further specic scoping and testing by and/or
with the AES.

be that: the individual is only traceable while

they remain employed by the same agency/
government; and the questionable quality of
the Indigenous identier. The ABS has done
qualitative work analysing the veracity of using
Aboriginal/Torres Strait Islander indicators
in employment by-product data. Indigenous
focus group participants explained that their
decision to self-identify as Aboriginal/Torres
Strait Islander was determined on a caseby-case basis, for example people who had
experienced discrimination in the past were
unlikely to self-identify in the future. Employer
procedures relating to Aboriginal/Torres Strait
Islander identication were also unreliable. It
has been suggested that some employers have
used visual indicators to report Aboriginal/
Torres Strait Islander status rather than
asking employees.

Other by-product data

Interest in using commonwealth by-product
data was shown by several key informants
interviewed in this study. There were two
ways in which this issue was typically raised.
First, serious consideration has been given to
using information from the Commonwealth as
an employer of Indigenous Australians, and
second there has been less well-developed
thought given to using data generated from
the Commonwealth as a service provider/
funder. No specic informants were targeted to
investigate these sources of by-product data.
However, two data experts and one case study
informant raised the issue of government byproduct data in the course of their interviews.

Government as service provider:

This remains a particularly opaque area
of data collection on Indigenous and nonIndigenous job seekers. It is clear that there
are very large data stores of information
relating to Australians in receipt of all forms of
government assistance. Issues associated with
privacy and the reliability of data would have
to be closely investigated. While this would be
a signicant undertaking it would most likely
provide very general indicative information
about transitions into and out of different
forms of government assistance. It is very
unlikely, in and of itself, to tell any story about
career development and transitions.

Governments as employer
The ABS and some academics have
investigated the viability of using government
employment data to investigate Indigenous
employment in the public sector. Given that
relatively high proportions of the Indigenous
labour force work in the public service this
data has the potential to describe a critical
sub-section of Indigenous employment.
However, threshold issues relating to the
collection and reliability of the data have
stymied efforts to gather and use the
information. The two key limitations appear to

KF8 Signicant reformation of

national statistical holdings would
need to occur, in order to deliver
national career-relevant data items
capable of reecting Indigenous, and
indeed mainstream, experience.
Given the limited nature of current data stores
it is worth considering, in general terms, what
it would take to generate a purpose built data

33

expertise in pursuit of that end. They have a

specic unit tasked with building the collection
of Indigenous statistics. Any effort to
inuence and reform national statistics would
be best achieved with the involvement of this
unit. They actively deal with the constraints
and challenges associated with the collection,
analysis and dissemination. Equally CAEPR,
at the ANU, is an institution which houses
in-depth knowledge of the relevant statistical
holdings, academic interest and expertise in
the area of Indigenous economic and social
life, and sound technical acumen regarding
creative statistical reporting. This research
group would be a useful source of advice and
a potential ally in efforts to rebuild or improve
national statistical collections.

strategy to statistically examine Indigenous

career experience. Based on the literature
outlined earlier in this report, and on the
subsequent interviews conducted with a range
of stakeholders, it is clear that there are two
fundamental research elements that would
have to be satised to enable the reformation
of the statistical measures currently in place
development of a career concept framework;
and conduct of a longitudinal survey
representative of Indigenous Australians.
Firstly preliminary qualitative work would
have to be undertaken to better conceptualise
career. As it currently stands, while there is
apparent interest growing in regards to career
experience, there appears to be no conceptual
framework outlining how to investigate it. It
is our view that new empirical work needs
to be undertaken to build those insights.
This is a pre-requisite to designing survey
instrument(s). Without that conceptual work
to guide it, designing appropriately rened
statistical tools would be awed from
the outset.
Secondly, any statistical study of career
transitions would have to be conducted
longitudinally; in other words, it would
optimally track the experience of individuals
over time. Achieving this statistically (that
is, enabling representative reporting of
the Indigenous population) would require
grappling with the barriers to data collection
that are already being faced, not least of which
involve locating an appropriate sample of the
population and retaining them in such a study.
We also know this is becoming increasingly
difcult in an environment where participant
fatigue is recognised as a signicant issue.
The costs associated with conducting a
longitudinal survey to investigate career for
Indigenous Australians would be considerable,
but pertinent to the national interest. The
ABS would consequently be instrumental
in providing the resources and technical

34

35

has provided a policy forum through which

debates over inferior and superior approaches
to Indigenous employment can be played out,
and shared. Sharing anecdotal experience in
this way can make an important contribution
to building understanding of employment
patterns and pathways that yield longer term
career outcomes. Researchers also note
that best practice has encouraged sectoral
leadership behaviour, which has produced
benets in the eld of Indigenous employment.
In other words, if one high prole employer
receives a best practice honoric, this can
encourage others to engage in policy mimicry,
by implementing policies which will rival or
out do their competitors. Constable (2009)
notes this behaviour particularly in the nance
sector, in which the big four have sought to
outperform each other as socially responsible
employers by implementing Indigenous
employment diversity programs. It could
also be argued that the dialogue surrounding
best practice debates has also highlighted
the importance of employer behaviour and
responsibility in the realm of Indigenous
employment strategy. In other words, best
practice points to demand considerations,
and not simply supply considerations in
understanding the culmination of employment
outcomes. Best practice highlights that
context, behaviour and practice of a range
of stakeholders (employers, government, not
for prot providers) are also critical to the
formation of successful employment outcomes,
and these often lay beyond the control of the
individual labour market entrant.

QUALITATIVE APPROACHES
TO INDIGENOUS CAREER
ANALYSIS: A CRITIQUE OF
BEST PRACTICE
In the realm of Indigenous employment
research, qualitative method has been used
most commonly to explore and dene best
practice principles of conduct. A main nding
of this paper is that the overwhelming reliance
on best practice approaches within this
eld of research is problematic, at best. On
one hand, best practice examinations could
be said to expand the body of knowledge
surrounding successful career pathways, and
this is undoubtedly a benet. On the other
hand, researchers note that many examples of
practice cited to be best, are questionable.
As Dockery & Milson note, the lack of data
and evaluation mean the evidence on best
practice is scant (2007: 45). In addition,
much best practice research lacks what might
be described as diagnostic components. In
other words, best practice guidelines are
often promulgated as if universally relevant,
but in reality are lacking form with regard to
sectoral, individual or workplace variation.
Consequently, best practice guidelines which
lack differentiation in design, may present
employers with a highly misleading set of
solutions for a perceived local or sectoral
barrier to Indigenous career formation.
KF9 Best practice has made a
conicted contribution to the
eld of Indigenous employment
policy and research. The concept
needs further adaptation in
order to prove effective in
enhancing understanding of career
development, and success.

However, the failures of best practice are

also well noted. Researchers note that
best practice examinations often lack depth
(Constable 2009) and focus (Ongaro 2010),
and this ultimately offers individual employers
a poor level of insight when seeking to embark
on either remedial, or more ambitious and
proactive program design. Even stronger
criticism has been levelled at the lack of

The concept of best practice has delivered a

number of benets to the eld of Indigenous
employment policy and practice. It could
be argued that the notion of best practice

36

scrutiny surrounding much best practice

activity. Employers may claim to offer a range
of supports reputed to be consistent with best
practice guidelines (eg mentoring, cultural
awareness training), and may improve their
brand and prole as a result, but the validity
of these claims is rarely put to the test. As
Constable (2009) notes there is a tendency for
employers, particularly in the private sector, to be
at preliminary stages of implementation in which
the focus is on public statements of commitment
rather than substantive organisational change.
The checklist approach to best practice policy
development also receives much criticism.
Indeed during the course of qualitative
interviews for this project, key informants
were vocal on this subject. The following two
comments are representative of a range of
sentiments expressed on this point:

KF10 The best practice concept

needs to be made more userfriendly. The prescriptive checklist
approach, which has dominated
best practice guidelines to date, is
not particularly effective for users
(either employers or labour market
intermediaries). Developing or
improving the diagnostic elements
of best practice guidelines is
recommended.
This paper argues that the concept of best
practice in Indigenous employment program
design, requires expansion and greater
differentiation in order to remain relevant to
practitioner experience. The development
of a diagnostic component would allow
stakeholders to differentiate between barriers,
and therefore develop and implement more
appropriate and workplace-tailored (not
generic) solutions.

Its all become reduced to a very tick the box

approach. Its all the same issues mentoring,
cultural awareness training, which are all valid
issues but theres no evaluation as to why
these things should happenschemes are
often implemented that are not particularly well
informed (Indigenous employment policy
informant, not for prot agency).

Bringing greater meaning to the best

practice mode of examination
Academic critiques of best practice have
identied a need for greater structure, and
expansion in the scope for application. Ongaro
(2009) notes that the causal texture or
the interaction between factors is critical to
dening, understanding generalizability, and
then ultimately implementing best practice
principles. This causal texture, notes Ongaro,
should seek to capture the dynamics of
change, and how factors interact to create
positive or negative conditions at a workplace
level. As Ongaro notes, the denitive best
practice question asks what works?, but this
represents a awed starting point for analysis
because it seeks too big an answer at once
(2009). Ongaro states that best practice must
be considered as a two stage process. First,
the researcher must seek to understand how
the system operates in the rst place before

I can tell you, there are a lot of programs out

there that are not very good, and yet they can
claim to be because they conform to all the
must haves (Indigenous employment policy
informant, government).
In other words, a best practice approach to
Indigenous employment is often characterised
as a static set of features, devoid of
demographic, workplace, community or
sectoral context. As a DEST investigation of
best practice within Indigenous program design
notes, demonstrably effective approaches
in one context may not be transferable or
generalizable (1997). These arguments all
point to the use of the best practice model as
little more than a marketing tool, rather than
as part of a robust evaluative technique.

37

secondly, seeking to consider how this system

might be made to work better.

to build on existing wisdom in the eld of best

practice, rather than seeking to reinvent the
wheel by dismissing the immense body of
knowledge that has accumulated around the
best practice concept over the last 25 years.

We argue that the 4X4 model represents a

way to examine concepts of best practice, by
capturing the dynamics of change described
by Ongaro. The 4X4 model provides a way
to initially identify the contextual terrain of
Indigenous employment and career experience,
and consider the nature of relationships and
key factors underpinning this experience,
before progressing to consideration of how
improvements might be made. This alternative
approach would serve to structure and order
(Ongaro 2009) best practice discussions, and
therefore expand both the descriptive and
evaluative capacity of best practice ndings,
beyond that typically offered by a guideline or

An analysis of best practice guidelines9,

corroborated by intelligence provided by key
informants during the course of this project,
identies some recurring themes. As the
special interest of this research is in career
or sustainable employment, best practice
guidelines were specically gleaned for those
features identied to be closely associated
with not just employment outcomes, but
longer term employment outcomes. Applying
this criteria, most best practice guidelines
include some conguration of the following
characteristics (Generation One 2010 & 2011;
DEEWR 2011; WA Health 2010; NSW 2011;
NCVER 2007; ANTA 2008; DEST 1997):

checklist approach.
This paper seeks to develop the best practice
concept as a diagnostic, rather than
prescriptive tool alone. In order to achieve
this, literature and key informant interviews
point to a need for greater differentiation
in the ndings associated with Indigenous
career experience. By differentiating some
key factors associated with positive career and
job transitions, it is hoped that stakeholders
(particularly intermediaries and employers)
will be better able to diagnose and develop
appropriate responses to perceived barriers
to employment for Indigenous peoples,
particularly at a local level.

Providing a targeted program, designed

to specically meet the culturally diverse
needs of Indigenous peoples, is important
to achieve improvements in employment
outcomes.
Organisational leadership, in many forms,
(eg champions, advocates, or senior
leadership by a CEO), appears to offer
particular benets to an Indigenous
employment program.
Organisations require additional crosscultural supports in order to deliver a well
rounded Indigenous employment program
(eg education, awareness or cross cultural
training).

This paper seeks to take a rst step in

developing a diagnostic best practice tool, by
applying the 4X4 factor model to its analysis.
This model distinguishes between barriers
and drivers of employment success, and
seeks to differentiate these factors further by
considering the implicit and explicit barriers,
and labour market versus workplace level
manifestations of these factors. The benet

The need for mentoring of Indigenous

employees, post appointment, is a
recurring theme.
Individual planning, and career planning
are important.

of this approach is that it allows this research

9.

The research conned its focus to best practice guidelines pertaining to Indigenous employment outcomes, developed and
promulgated in the last ten years. This ensured that the research was informed by material which remained most relevant to
current labour market conditions and experience.

38

the idea that getting someone into a job should

be counted as an outcome, when that job could
be over in the matter of weeks or months, is
frankly, ridiculous (consultant to NFP).

Partnerships and engagement,

particularly with a local Indigenous
community are benecial.
Outcomes should be monitored.

it is well known that Job Services Australia

is geared towards getting an outcome, any
outcome. Its fulfilling a requirementensuring
accountability for payment, theres very little
long term thinking about it in most cases and
that doesnt serve the interests of anyone,
Indigenous or non-Indigenous, when youre
talking about trying to bring about long term
change (employment service provider,
Indigenous specic).

Training, and the provision of culturally

appropriate training is needed in order to
achieve alignment with employer
skill needs.
This research revisits these concepts,
corroborated by the insights and intelligence
provided by qualitative key informant
interviews, and armed with a conceptual
model which will allow these labour market
knowns to be reconstructed with greater
differentiation as to the barriers, drivers to
change, and the supply and demand forces
underpinning momentum of change. In
addition, this research specically allows us
to test whether these foundation concepts or
knowns, are also relevant to career success,
and not just employment outcome.

A recent Generation One (2011) report

also highlights the need for best practice
concepts to reect this longer term notion
of employment outcome. In order to remain
a powerful tool of instruction for both
workplaces and intermediaries, Generation One
states the question of Indigenous employment
is about identifying meaningful employment and
how it can be sustained. In other words, how
do organisations become sites for not just
employment, but career development?

Achieving career-focused outcomes:

some key ndings
Informants interviewed during the course
of this project highlight a number of key
issues associated with achieving successful
(sustainable) employment outcomes for
Indigenous peoples in the labour market. As
an upfront observation, many informants
corroborated the need for additional policy
and research work to be done to more deeply
develop and understand the concept of career,
and its meaning within Indigenous peoples.
This is consistent with a key nding identied
by the literature review, outlined in the earlier
stages of this report. Key informants for this
project expressed deep criticism of the job
placement approach was had typied much
labour market intervention historically. The
following comments are representative of the
range of comments raised on this point:

KF11 Labour market intermediaries

and brokering organisations
continue to play an important role in
career formation and development
for Indigenous peoples. However,
these agencies need an improved
information base that will help
educate their engagements with
Indigenous peoples, so that
approaches and interventions are
designed to address identied, and
not assumed, barriers.
Intermediaries, if well informed and
experienced, are strategically well positioned
to view the perspectives of, and engage
with, both the supply and demand sides of
the labour market. Using the 4X4 model
as an analytical guide, intermediaries are

39

relationship with the direct manager of an

Indigenous worker, the individual worker and
other parts of the organisation or training
agencies relevant to the workers development
and career goals. Other operational
responsibilities performed by intermediaries
include the administration of pay roll, shifts
and rostering, and even the commitment to
arrange work-related items like uniforms. For
example, where training has to occur off-site,
and during work time, the intermediary may be
responsible for liaising with the workplace over
time away. The closeness of this relationship
and the high level of trust is demonstrated in
the day to day practices and protocols between
these three partners. For example, in one
case, an employee would phone the GTO rather
than the employer, if they needed to take sick
leave. It then became the GTOs responsibility
to manage negotiations with the employer.
Interviewees noted in some cases, that this
arrangement offered particular benets in
addressing some implicit barriers to long term
employment for Indigenous workers. While it
is important to acknowledge the great cultural
and individual diversity across Indigenous
workers, nevertheless it is important to note
that some Indigenous employees are reluctant
to assert and direct these negotiations due to
what might be described as cultural shyness
or what some interviewees call shaming.
While the contractual arrangements between
employers, employees and intermediaries may
vary, interviewees point to a common benet.
The intermediary is assisting in an operational
way in managing the employment relationship,
and this appears to address both explicit and
implicit barriers to employment for Indigenous
workers.

also strategically well placed in many other

respects. Skilled intermediaries can offer
visibility and foresight of both implicit and
explicit barriers to employment for Indigenous
peoples (at both the labour market and
workplace level).
Informants note the critical role of
intermediaries in establishing and developing
careers amongst Indigenous peoples. This
role could be played in a variety of ways, in
part because of the diversity in governance
arrangements that exist between employers
and intermediaries, ranging from low to
high engagement. In the highest forms
of engagement, the relationship between
intermediary, employee or trainee and
employer can be described as triangular. A
common example of this kind of relationship
might be the Group Training Model.
Using the 4X4 model, these high engagement
intermediaries manage some core barriers
(both implicit and explicit) to labour market
participation for Indigenous peoples.
Interviewees for this project note the value
of being able to hand the employment
relationship to someone else. In this
model, trouble shooting, administration and
the operational and resource challenges
of managing employees are undertaken
by an intermediary, or a third party in the
employment relationship triangle. These
arrangements are by no means uniform across
intermediaries. In some cases, intermediaries
can offer advice and structure all aspects of
recruitment, selection and screening, with
employers only coming in at the end of the
process to participate on selection panels. In
other cases, the intermediary is responsible
for all aspects of career development,
including managing and organising vocational
training, and negotiating hours scheduling
between all parties (trainer and off site
training facility, trainee and work site). This is
common among GTOs, for example. In other
cases, the intermediary maintains a close

The casualization of the workforce, and the

preference for short term contracts is well
noted as a major demographic shift of the
last twenty ve years (Campbell 2000). While
this is often not overtly acknowledged in
literature as a barrier to career development
for Indigenous workers, it is undeniably an

40

explicit barrier to long term employment,

and career development in the mainstream
labour market at large. Indeed it could
be argued that Indigenous workers are
disproportionately affected by casualization,
more than the mainstream labour market
at large. A high proportion of Indigenous
workers are engaged in two sectors of work
exclusively - public infrastructure projects, and
community services. Both of these sectors
rely heavily on casual work and numerical
exibility (community services and health)
and short term contracts of 1-3 years (public
infrastructure projects).

and employee, by acting as a conciliator and

agent through which both parties can openly
communicate. In this sense, intermediaries
assume some of the HR and developmental
burdens that employers perceive to be
associated with longer term employment
relationships, and this is not conned to their
perceptions of Indigenous employees.
The intermediary also has a role to play in a
critical, albeit implicit, barrier to employment
for Indigenous workers poorly formed
or misinformed job role characterisation.
Historically, as noted by the literature review,
a great deal of emphasis has been placed on
the delivery of suitably skilled employees to
meet identied skill vacancies, and on a larger
scale, identied skill shortages within the
labour market. While it is well acknowledged
that both generic and vocational skills gaps
are signicant obstacles to employment for
Indigenous workers (Hughes 2007), so too are
misinformed job descriptors. Great emphasis
has been placed on, as Generation One (2011)
describes it - alignment or the pressing
need for job readiness, training and support to
be aligned with available jobs as demand for
Indigenous workers increases. The ndings
of our interviews identify that this concept
requires much further development and
extension, if it is to be usefully characterised
as best practice activity in the minds of
the informants of this project. We would
characterise best practice alignment as
more closely described as skill calibration,
because it requires more than aligning a
good match between worker and job, but a
deeper adjustment and questioning of the
expectations themselves in determining
whether or not an appropriate t can be
achieved. As a key informant notes this is
not, strange as it sounds, about improving
information around skill shortages, although
that kind of information forms part of the puzzle.
Its about improving our relationships with
employers and meeting their needs, yes, but
its also about understanding how they develop

In terms of implicit barriers, the intermediary

can also have an important role to play in
the management of HRM challenges which
the employer perceives as a burden. During
the course of interviews, many informants
noted what we label as teething problems.
These problems seemed to be specically
associated with the early days of the
employment relationship, in which either
party (employer or employee) are likely to
terminate their relationship, rather than work
through problems, to achieve an altered,
but more acceptable pact to both parties.
Typically, these make or break teething
problems appear to occur very early in the
employment relationship within the rst
few months, or year when employees or
trainees are learning the ropes of a new job,
or in some cases, are gaining a foothold in
the labour market for the rst time. As one
employer describes it trainees are often gone
within three months, and thats of their doing
not ours. In this regard, intermediaries can
be identied again as offering a benet,
and counteracting barriers to ongoing
work for Indigenous workers. For example,
intermediaries can manage some of the
perceived HR challenges associated with
employing an Indigenous employee, and can
manage an employer through their reluctance
to employ. Intermediaries can also help
engender commitment between employer

41

their own internal understanding of a job role.

Interviewees note that adept intermediaries
work more closely to understand, in detail, the
nature of the skill gap an employer perceives
needs to be lled. Informants pointed to
the immense value of the intermediary who
can offer perspectives on both local supply
(what kinds of skills, where are these people
located, what are the needs of the workers
involved?) and demand environments (how
is work scheduled, what skills are required
and how have these been identied, if this
skill prole cannot be met, is their employer
preparedness to support skill development?) in
order to facilitate the delivery of longer term
employment outcomes.

commissioned studyhaving an organisation

that can provide that knowledge, and not just the
standard recruitment and selection service type
stuff (employer, multiple sites, Australia wide
medium size A).
We were able to access knowledge about
the local community, who are the young men
that might be interested, genuinely interested
in this kind of workwe knew the information
about the mandatory components of job roles
(safety requirements, licensing) and we took it
from there, working closely with managers to
understand exactly what works in our industry
(employer, medium size B).
KF12 Improving the information
base on possible best practice
approaches, is not necessarily about
hard numbers, but ensuring a
thorough catchment of the range of
issues likely to impact Indigenous
engagement with, and sustained
involvement in, paid labour market
participation. In this regard, the
4X4 model may be instructive to
practice.

During the course of this project, some

employers raised concerns about the
commercial sensitivities associated with
sharing information about company practice
to potential competitors. As these employers
note, We do keep a pretty close informal eye on
what others in our sector are up to (employer
large scale). Conversations with other employers
about how to overcome problems and improve
programs do occur, but they occur in a cautious
way (employer, multiple sites, Australia wide).
An intermediary, if experienced and trusted,
can offer a way to impart and share this
information so that it informs good program
design, but does not directly undermine the
commercial standing of a corporation. In other
words, intermediaries can become custodians
of knowledge about many aspects of good
program design, and over time, can accumulate
immense qualitative knowledge of certain
program elements work, and the preconditions
necessary for success.

As noted in the literature reviewed earlier, the

range of issues that can impact Indigenous
employment experience is vast. During the
course of this project, interviewees raised a
wide range of issues that could prove pivotal
to the delivery of best practice in the realm
of Indigenous employment program delivery.
A thematic analysis of these commentaries
identies a number of key ndings, which
highlight how best practice principles require
revision, in the light of longer term careerfocused outcomes.

The following statements describe the benet

of well-informed intermediary, in designing,
implementing and managing Indigenous
employees and/or designing an Indigenous
specic employment program. We didnt have
the resources to undertake a big investigation
ourselves, or commit to spending a lot on a

Demand-side practice impacts both

recruitment and retention of staff. A
preference for values-based selection
amongst employers may have impacts
for career development strategy for
Indigenous workers

42

We only take on people who are mentally

ready and willing to work. Dont take on people
who arent ready (medium sized employer,
education).

It is well documented that recruitment and

selection practices amongst employers have
shifted signicantly over the last ten or more
years, toward what has been described as
values-based selection. A number of features
dene this shift in practice including: a growing
belief amongst employers that applicants
should be assessed for good organisational
or cultural t rather than simply skill t
(Bach 2005); an increasing tendency to
incorporate tools that can test personality,
core values and the right attitude when
assessing suitability of applicants (Preffer
1992) and; a growing perception amongst
employers that identifying employees with the
right attitude will increase both performance
and retention amongst employees (Paauwe
2004). Growth in the use of psychometric
testing, behavioural and personality proling
have all been identied as reective of
this emerging shift in recruitment practice
(Bretherton 2009). While the validity of these
testing measures continues to be deeply
questioned by many researchers (Pauuwe
2004; Ones et al 1994), Australian employers
have increasingly embraced these techniques,
and the recruitment agencies that rely on
these tools, for twenty years. Australian
employers within a diverse range of sectors
(nance, community services, retail and trades
(automotive repair, plumbing) have embraced
the use of these proling techniques, both
formally and informally in recruitment
processes (Bretherton 2009). The employers
interviewed during the course of this project,
and indeed intermediary informants, also
note an implied preference for values-based
selection. While no interviewees discussed
in detail, their use of personality testing or
measures of this kind, many noted an inherent
preference for assessing the values over the
skills as a priority in the course of applicant
selection. Informants argued that if applicants
with the right attitude could be found, they
would be more likely to stay and commit to the
organisation for the long term.

We make it clear from the outset what the

expectations are, and what individuals will need
to do in order to participateWe offer support
and will be there to offer guidance in getting
them on a career track, but people need to be
willing to meet their responsibilities as well
(recruitment agency).
We talked about the expectations, we talked
about the realities of it. When I spoke to the
leaders at the community level, I said, I want
your best people, approach them, get them to
come along to hear what we have to say. This
is a high risk industry, we cant have people
who are not willing to stick to it, they have to be
willing to be drug tested, to be prepared to get
licences, they need to do the training to operate
heavy machinery. We dont need to advertise
this. We want you to go to your communities,
and find the people, your best young people.
We didnt want to focus on the hard endthis is
about offering opportunities to those who want
success and the community stepped up to this
challenge in every regard (large employer,
regional).
people may not have the experience, but if
youve got someone with the right values, you
can train themafter that, getting the right skills
is the easy part (recruitment agency).
This has deep signicance for the analysis
of career formation, in both the mainstream,
and for Indigenous workers particularly.
As Constable notes (2009: 8) in a recent
study of recruitment practice, employer
practices need to be distinguished in terms
of attraction and retention, and this requires
greater conceptual clarication. While great
emphasis is typically placed on supply side
skill formation, and on greater alignment
between skill development and job role, there

43

line rationale, these employers also noted the

presence of a social objective as well.

is clearly also a demand-side expectation that

applicants will demonstrate certain values.
From an applicant standpoint, this could create
an additional challenge because the process of
value-screening is inherently less transparent
than other forms of applicant assessment.
Unlike accredited skill prerequisites, applicants
face the challenge of seeking to shape
behaviour and values to t a set of desirable
criteria which, in many cases, are not disclosed
nor transparent to either existing employees
seeking promotion, or external applicants.

this is not kindergartenwere trying to build

a [public infrastructure project] but at the same
time we are compassionate, a few fellas tested
high for marijuana use, we had a conversation
about that, let them get themselves clean and
offered support so they could be retested again
for entry a few weeks later (large employer,
regional).
We have a mission around social justice, and
most people that work here understand that,
and it forms the basis of what we do (medium
employer, multiple sites east coast Australia).

The social motivations associated with

Indigenous employment programs appear
to deeply impact the long term success of
a career focused employment program

This social motivation is important to the

longevity of specialised programs, argue
informants, because it gives dedicated
personnel the imprimatur to lobby for
continuation of the program, from within an
organisation. As one employer described it,

Amongst the key informants interviewed

for this project, the social motivations or
underpinnings of an Indigenous employment
program are important to a programs
longevity. Many interviewees described the
resource constraints associated with running
and managing a culturally specic employment
support program. These costs can include:
human resource staff comprising specialised
personnel to implement and manage a
program; engagement and liaison with an
intermediary (recruitment rm or GTC); the
time taken to coordinate all parties engaged
in the program (individual worker, managers,
other staff, training agencies). For these
programs to continue, informants argued
that this required more than a bottom line
to justify their existence. As one employer
interviewed notes our main motivation was
to contribute to bridging the gap, rather than
addressing internal corporate issues like labour
shortages (large employer). Or as another
employer notes if we were implementing the
program for economic reasons alone, lets face
it, there would be more cost effective ways
to go about it. Even in those case study
sites which declared that the program had
a strong economic foundation and bottom

10.

all HR programs will face resource constraints

at some point, and if the program is not
underpinned by an overarching social justice
goal, their ability to leverage more funds or
support for the programs continuance, are
severely constrained.
This issue also arose in the context of the
discussions surrounding targets or quotas
and whether they represent a positive tool
in the establishment of career pathways
for Indigenous staff. While targets are a
sometimes contentious area of Indigenous
employment policy, the ndings of this
research suggest that their use had proved
instrumental in establishing the momentum
necessary to achieve longer term employment
or career outcomes10. In many cases, the
Indigenous employment program in place
had emerged from an original mandatory
requirement (eg an employment action plan
to full the terms of a government contract,
or to meet a requirement to provide an

This was often not declared at interview, but an historical examination and background analysis of the program at the focus of
analysis, revealed a target or mandatory requirement as the origin of the program.

44

Indigenous identied or designated position in

accordance with equity provisions of a local or
organisation wide agreement). This suggests a
value in understanding the notion of demand
in a contextual way, and that demand for skill
is a process impacted by multiple factors,
many of which are not immediately
connected to the processes typically
associated with job formation, and job
description that might be thought to form the
keystone of recruitment design.

level, and the need for indicators of career

success to provide the opportunity to reect
this dimension of Indigenous experience,
and positive labour market outcome. While
informants noted the value of quantitative
measures of career success (eg time in
employment, level of promotion achieved etc),
many informants also highlighted the fact that
over-emphasis on these features of success in
many respects miss the point. We describe
a set of discussions surrounding the need to
acknowledge and value the collective impact of
long term employment engagement as career
success. We have labelled this phenomenon the local hero effect.

The qualitative notion of a career

and successful employment
outcome requires signicant
development, before it can be
operationalized into demonstrable
and measurable outcomes,
particularly in the context of highly
diverse Indigenous experience

The local hero effect

Interviewees note the value of achieving
and maintaining employment, particularly in
some Indigenous communities where paid
employment is not the norm. One informant
described the need to capture and value this
achievement as a successful outcome, even
though it may not conform to mainstream
notions of career success (such as ascension
to higher status job roles, or higher pay).

As noted earlier in this paper, the issue of

what might dene a successful employment
outcome, or career success, represents
a challenging issue for the eld of labour
market and occupational research. Informants
interviewed during the course of the study
provide some insights on the issue of career
development in Indigenous communities. The
interviewees note the immense diversity in
experience, and the challenge this creates in
dening what might represent satisfying long
term employment engagement.

how can you quantify an outcome like that...if

youre only 19, and youve faced generations and
I mean generations of unemployment, and youre
the only person employed in your family, and you
are now not just working, but youve managed
to get a car, and youre paying off that car, and
youre in the community driving around, going to
workhow can you evaluate the impact of that?
I can tell you, in our community the benefit of
that...its huge (intermediary).

To some extent, the challenge of denition

surrounding good work for Indigenous
workers, echoes the long standing academic
discussion surrounding the sociological
meaning of work and satisfaction at work,
from the perspective of the actor engaged
in it. The insights provided by informants
shed some important insights to this issue, in
the context of Indigenous experience. Many
informants pointed to the value of long term
labour market engagement or career success,
at the collective, rather than individual

Another informant, an employer in this case,

describes a similar connotation of career
success, that may require contemplation in
further studies of employment and career
success in Indigenous communities.

45

As one informant notes the GTO role as

criticalit works at the drafting stages of a job
role, and looks for good fitit provides support
at the worksite, but also relieves staff the burden
of having to navigate the training system and
establish relationships with so many disparate
RTOs.

seeing those guys when theyre heading home,

they stop in the town, theyve got their high tech
gear on, the sunnies on, theyre driving home
from work, theyre stopping to talk to other
people in the community, the pride those guys
have and how the community feels about them
you can see it, and its a great thing to see.

Structures of employment appear related

to the likelihood of long term employment

KF13 Demand side considerations

require rethinking, and implicit
barriers to employment require
further examination, in light of new
models of best practice.

The provision of permanency and the

contract of employment may be important, if
overlooked, considerations in the generation
of best practice outcomes for Indigenous
employment. In an evaluation of internal
(condential) company evaluation documents,
reviewed as part of the primary source
materials for this project, dissatisfaction
with level of pay and terms of employment
represented a main reason for Indigenous staff
exit from a high prole national Indigenous
employment program.

Many informants noted the value of looking

beyond skill shortages alone, in seeking
to better understand employer demand.
Informants perceive a range of benets to be
associated with development around this issue.
This corroborates the ndings of the literature
review for this paper. As research by the DCA
(2010) notes What was also apparent from a
review of the literature was an assumption on
the part of many employers and government
policy makers that Indigenous people lack the
necessary skills and qualifications to successfully
enter the labour market. Or as Hunter and
Gray (2002: 36) note equivalent attention
needs to be given to employer attitudes towards
Aboriginal employment. This line of argument
was corroborated by the commentaries of
informants to this project. A range of issues
relevant to this discussion, is outlined below.

This points to a more complex set of issues

impacting the alignment of skill, reputed to
form the basis of successful best practice
outcomes for Indigenous workers. While the
generic skill base (institutional education) and
applied and work-relevant skills (vocational
training and experience) are clearly important
to labour market engagement, contractual
arrangement between employer and employee
appears pivotal to the longevity of this
engagement. For instance, in interviews
with an employer who was widely regarded
to be a high prole best practice operator
in the Indigenous labour market, the pay
rate had been identied as an obstacle to
the retention of staff, particularly trainees.
Also problematic, and a concern for trainees
appeared to be the lack of exibility over
rostering arrangements. Shifts for trainees
appeared to be scheduled at peak times, or
to backll for staff. While this was clearly
important to meet the needs of numerical
exibility of the organisation, this appeared

The intermediary can play an important

role in mediating the gap between
expectation and skill deliverance
There is much emphasis placed on lifting
or shifting the employee skills set to meet
employer expectations and needs. A common
example is the generic skills gap, noted earlier
in the literature review for this paper. In
this discussion, the role of the intermediary
is again identied by interviewees as being
absolutely critical because it offers a
brokerage between supply and demand factors.

46

from a demand side perspective, informants

argued that the best employers sought to
understand and reect the work and family
balance, as it exists within the unique cultural
contexts of Indigenous communities. As one
employer describes, the household and carer
responsibilities maintained by Indigenous
peoples, can be quite unique in the context
of mainstream experience. As one informant
notes this may not immediately be understood
nor recognised by non-indigenous Branch
managers or colleagues... they may have
relatively high levels of responsibility in their
families, including the need to look after younger
children (others as well as their own) on short
notice when their parents were working, and
then looking after ailing relativesin many cases
it is out of step with what is considered standard
workplace behaviour. A coordinator of an
Indigenous employment program, operated
by a large organisation explained in these
circumstances we need to speak to managers
about thisthat its expected within the frame
of the family to prioritise these responsibilities
above all others and that young people
frequently take on these responsibilities very
early in life.

to offer trainees with a dissatisfying mix of

on-site and off-site training experiences, and
had served as a disincentive to stay with the
organisation.
This is corroborated by other recent evidence,
which points to the strong desire for certainty
and security at work, and this desire forming
part of a denition of job success or career
achievement for many Indigenous workers. In
a recent survey conducted by the AES (Careers
report 2011), an overwhelming majority of
Indigenous workers identify a strong desire
to establish and develop a career (96 per
cent of respondents), and that the majority
of workers felt that job security formed an
important part of achieving this aspiration
(99 per cent of respondents). This indicates
that the contractual arrangements governing
work, particularly permanency, may form an
important factor in understanding successful
and best practice forms of employment
arrangements, and therefore outcomes, for
Indigenous workers.
Challenges in balancing work and family
are a disincentive to long term labour
market engagement

A number of informants noted a need for direct

managers to engage with and understand
the personal and family circumstances of
Indigenous staff, in a way that may be different
to non-Indigenous workers, in order to be
effective. Conventions surrounding manager/
employee relationships typically operate on a
principle of leave your personal matters at the
door, in order to both preserve the privacy of
staff and to minimise the impact of personal
problems on job performance. One informant
noted that an alternative approach with some
Indigenous employees may be required, in
order to encourage long term engagement
with an organisation managers could form
stronger links with the schools and the families
of employees and trainees for which they are
responsible.it would help to understand
where employees were coming from. This, in

Researchers note the challenge faced by many

workers in balancing work and family in the
context of the current mainstream labour
market (Pocock, Buchanan, Whitehouse).
Longer working hours, work intensication,
declining job security and challenges in
retaining sick and leave entitlements are all
well noted to directly impact the ability of
workers to manage family, in the context of
heightened responsibilities at work (Watson,
Campbell, Buchanan). Indigenous workers
too, face these challenges, and according to
the informants of this study, this challenge
may manifest in a particularly intense way.
All of the key informants to this study note
the strong value placed on responsibility to
family and community, which exists within
Indigenous communities. Viewing this issue

47

practice employment programs. However,

more recent research has begun to shine light
on the concept, and indicates that greater
differentiation in the concept may be required.
Constable (2009) makes a distinction between
professional, cultural and buddy mentoring.
For example, professional mentoring is
typically provided by someone with relevant
experience, who is not the direct manager, and
may not even be known to the person. Cultural
mentoring seeks to raise awareness of, and
offer support to Indigenous workers through
the provision of culturally specic information
and experience. Buddy mentoring is provided
between peers.

some respects, represents a stark contrast

to the clinical and distant relationships
which managers and subordinate staff are
often encouraged to maintain in mainstream
personnel management practice.
KF14 In the context of best
practice in career development,
much greater differentiation of,
and clarication around positive
mentoring is required.
Mentoring holds an uneasy place in discussion
of best practice and Indigenous employment
program design. It is arguably, the most
applauded, but also the most maligned of all
foundation best practice concepts in this realm
of policy. The following comments represent a

The ndings from this research point to

further, or alternative, forms of mentoring,
which may help to bring even further acuity
to the concept, and preconditions for its
effectiveness. Informants argued that
mentoring required more thoughtful design
in order to be effective. Indeed, based on the
range of issues identied around mentoring
and its implementation, the issue could
justify a qualitative examination of the forms,
implementation and rationale of the issue,
as a discreet subject of research in its own
right. The following summarises the potential
for differentiation in the concept. From our
analysis, we distinguish between three models
of mentoring - one on one, atmospheric
and peer.

range of criticisms surrounding the issue.

Mentoring is a special skill, not everyone can
do it. Many many people are inappropriate for
the job, and are not trained. A lot of people
employed as mentors dont know whats
needed. Its fashionable at the moment, but Im
not convinced in many cases it works very well
(Indigenous NFP).
Mentoring is not just a how you going?, it
should focus on whats next, it needs to be some
kind of regular engagement on performance, and
monitoring of the employees progressit rarely
does this (intermediary).
Informants did however, express strong
universal support for organisations to
provide committed, key personnel who:
took carriage of the program; built strong
high trust relationships with Indigenous
employees; and offered additional post-job
supports for Indigenous employees to ensure
their retention with an organisation. All of
these principles, they argued, were akin to
mentoring, but required good application and
required customisation to both worker and
organisational need, in order to be effective.
Mentoring is considered a staple of best

One-on-one mentoring
One on one mentoring can help raise
awareness of culturally unique needs of
Indigenous peoples at work, so that workers
feel safe in raising these issues.
Family responsibilities can be different to
those faced by mainstream or Anglo families..
and there is a magnitude of challenge for
young people that often isnt understood
experiencing significant family responsibilities,
still attending school and then, on top of that,

48

the need to work and adjust to a working

life missing out on social time as well and
frequently the burden associated with needing to
contribute to the household budgetthis needs
to be understood by managers, otherwise they
think kids are just not committed to work.

The need for a high trust relationship, in which

both sides of the mentoring partnership felt
a connection, was also afrmed as important
to successful mentoring in the context of
Indigenous employment program design. It
could be argued that this differs from the more
mainstream notion of professional mentoring
in which mentors can be nominated from a pool
of people, and a mentor and mentee may know
very little about each other personally.

One-on-one mentoring was noted by another

informant to be effective because it could
modify the expectations and behaviour on
both sides both Indigenous worker and
employer (particularly direct managers). One
informant described the contribution that
mentoring had made, to a very successful
school based traineeship program multigenerational unemployment has limited the
exposure of some young people to workplaces
expectations, standards of behaviour and dress everything. Some young people see no need to
modify their behaviour between the environment
of the basketball court and the workplacethat
requires better understanding on both sides.
This informant argued that mentoring was
most effective when a mentor could manage
relationships and conversations with direct
managers as well a process which might be
likened more to mediation.

you cant just appoint someone to be a

mentorit just wouldnt worktheres nothing
to hold the people to itthere needs to be
more consideration given to the match between
people and what the relationship is really
intending to do for the worker concerned
(intermediary).

Atmospheric mentoring
In this model of mentoring, Indigenous
employees may have a personal or one on
one mentor, but these individual relationships
are embedded in a wider environment
of mentoring, which occurs across an
organisation. Interviewees highlight the value
of having mentoring as a responsibility, shared
and spanning several positions (potentially
across many layers of management and/or
employment program partners). This might
include a personal mentor for an individual
Indigenous employee, but also a mentor within
a GTO, a mentor within the workplace, and a
mentor from HR. Informants cited a number
of important outcomes associated with this
approach, which appeared to yield positive
longer term employment opportunities for the
Indigenous employees involved.

The role of coaching in one-on-one mentoring

was also noted to be important by a number of
key informants.
a mentor also challenges you, a person who
gets you thinking about things differently, a
mentor doesnt just passively listen, but needs
to listen with all regard and is prepared to
stretch you.(employer, multiple sides,
eastern coast).
When it comes down to it, the one-on-one
relationships are what are important in terms
of offering support. We address people as
individuals, and thats what makes people
connect to a job and a workplace (medium
sized employer).

One employer noted that, in her experience,

Indigenous workers were reluctant to go
for promotion, and this had occurred for
a range of reasons. This employer argued
that their mentoring program had been
effective in addressing this issue directly Its
about being able to have a culture within an

49

organisation where someone can say with the

additional responsibilities I have, I need help, Im
struggling its a hard thing to say, because they
feel, they wont measure up.

You need to offer people a number of different

ways to resolve or address issues they may have,
and in a way that suits them. In this regard,
having a multi levelled approach helps (medium
employer, multiple sites, eastern coast).

One informant afrmed that having many

strands to a mentoring approach had helped
their organisation to maintain high rates of
retention amongst Indigenous staff. As this
interviewee noted, mentoring reduced the
potential for cross-cultural misunderstanding
which often contributed to staff ight from the
organisation. In the case of one organisation
this included mentors for managers, and
mentors for staff. As this informant describes
the low level of basic or generic skills amongst
staff is a problem, theres no getting around
that. For some managers, this was enough to

In the case of this employer, the organisation

had a steering committee of union,
coordinators, employee representatives
and elder (community) representatives, but
spearheaded by HR.
In our experience these things do work best if
they remain HR based, obviously working with
many different parts of the organisation and
supports reaching out to different parts, but with
the leadership being provided by HR.
In addition to this steering committee (who
were available for contact by any Indigenous
employee), staff had designated mentors (both
professional and peer) across the organisation.

put them off the whole thing. But if this can

be talked through, and a plan put in place,
managers wont feel it cant be overcome, and
there are supports in place (Indigenous support
ofcer, large rm). In one case an HR manager
also noted the value of mentoring that she
could provide to the branch manager who was
primarily responsible for a large proportion
of Indigenous employee placements. It
minimises attrition and this goes both ways it
reduces termination of trainees and it reduces
resignations.

One employer, in the nancial service sector,

argued that having access to an external
mentor, or someone who had knowledge of
the conditions at the workplace but was not
seen to belong to the workplace, also offered
a particular benet in mentoring terms. This
mentor would then work with the middle and
senior manager, and employee to work through
a solution at the workplace level.

An atmospheric mentoring model, also

appeared to deliver a very big benet to
Indigenous employees in the form of choice.
A number of informants spoke of the value of
exibility, and offering employees the ability to
raise and resolve issues in a manner in which
they felt comfortable. This, they argued, was
important because of the diversity across
Indigenous employees, in terms of experience,
condence and familiarity with workplace
process.

weve found our trainees will share these things

with field officers (who are generally indigenous
and external to the workplace) while they are
unlikely to discuss these matters with a nonindigenous direct manager at work.
this approach gives everyone a better outlook,
because the manager can make more informed
decisions, and theyve been supported in this
process, the trainee doesnt feel that no one
understands, and the organisation overall ends
up a bit better informed as a result.

Some people respond better to a more

structured approach, others dont.

50

It could be argued that this broad-based

approach to mentoring, allows an organisation
to identify both implicit and explicit or highly
visible and less visible barriers to either
continuing employment and/or upgrading
employment. In the case of one large
organisation, this broad based approach
to mentoring also allowed the company
to manage multiple aspects of what they
perceived to be barriers to Indigenous
retention. This interviewee noted that
employees would feel shame if they were asked
to undertake work they felt the organisation
had not actually given them sufcient raining
to undertake, a mentor allowed this issue to be
raised by a third party and not directly with the
manager.

While informants acknowledge that poor cross

cultural knowledge and awareness can both
implicitly and explicitly create barriers for
Indigenous workers in achieving job entry,
and promotion, there was little consensus
on the issue of how to construct, target and
direct approaches at lifting cultural awareness.
While all interviewees noted that poor cultural
understanding certainly contributed to barriers
to both Indigenous employment and retention,
in some cases the cultural awareness training
was not much better.
I think the cultural awareness concept is flawed.
Cultural appreciation yes. It requires more than
just knowledge and awareness (NFP)
A lot of it is very poorly done, and Im not sure it
adds much. Many organisation do it, to say they
have done it

Peer mentoring
A third type of mentoring advocated by
informants could be described as peer
mentoring. In this model, employees mutually
agree to support each other, and there are
formal and informal aspects to this support.
While the peer support model is driven by
employees, it is also monitored (in some cases,
quite loosely) to ensure that the system is
effective for both the organisation, and the
employees involved.

There are 2 levels of value in the process

youve got to think about a persons role in the
organisation, but you also need to deal with the
persons direct managers. You need to assess
the staff that people will be working under.
Forming an indigenous program requires a
delicate balance. Within the workplace, there
obviously has to be a focus on the needs of all
employees and ensuring that conditions are
right for everyone, but there also needs to be
flexibility, and all employees also have to be
pulled into line so that the environment becomes
receptive to the idea of Indigenous employment
and are on board with the program and its goals
(GV).

We were going to put on a mentor, but we see

how the guys are together. They look out for
each other, they eat lunch together, when they
come off the field theres a get together every
couple of weeks. Theyve found their own
mechanism of support on the issue of cultural
awareness training, weve asked them and
theyve said we dont want to feel different to
anyone else here.

My biggest goal is to get all staff to attend

indigenous cultural awareness training especially
the ones that dont think they need it or dont
see the point of itand as a priority it needs to
happen amongst key personnel.

KF15 There appears no accepted

denition of effective cross cultural
awareness, and the issue is highly
contentious in best practice terms.

It is for this reason that many informants

argued that the cultural awareness training
concept, although useful in broad terms,
required deep re-thinking when applied

51

People need to be fully informed and

understand the expectations associated with
their roles. Only then can you understand the
long term implications of where you are in the
organisation, You need of where you fit within the
organisation, and where you are going.

to considerations of longer term career

development. Recent research also
corroborates this nding. Constable (2009)
notes that while many organisations undertook
a commitment to provide cross cultural
training, there is often no evaluation of the
relevance, need for local involvement in, or
quality of the training ultimately provided.

Whenever you have an aspiration strategy that

is based on numbers and money, you have a
problem.

KF16 The issue of career aspiration

needs to feature more prominently
in determination of best practice
behaviour in the realm of Indigenous
employment programs.

The ability to capture aspiration is also

important to identifying barriers and
drivers to employment. As one informant
notes guidance and direction is needed
and a good individual needs assessment at
entry, because this allows strategies to be
formulated, in response to specic barriers
to career success, whether it be a skill gap,
additional family support, or condence
building. As one employment intermediary
describes, this is often identied as being
done by mainstream labour market
intermediaries, when in reality, it is not. You
might be asked what do you want to do? But
there are generally no processes to support it
happening, and if you dont come up with an
answer, well nothing comes of it.

Amongst the interviewees consulted for this

project, informants argued that aspiration
of the individual Indigenous employee
should form the foundation of a successful
employment and career-focused strategy.
Many informants spoke at length, about
the failure of many mainstream services in
failing to deliver on what they argued, is a
key responsibility in employment brokerage
services seeking to achieve real career
outcomes. The importance of capturing
aspiration is outlined by a number of
informants.
Drafting career plans is essential. This includes
offering the interpersonal support elements
(careers guidance, mentoring) and more practical
aspects of support such as career plans. For it
to work, people need to establish and see where
theyre heading - objectives and milestones.

KF17 The delivery of long term

employment outcomes on a large
scale, require specic forms of local
community engagement, beyond
what is currently considered best
practice.

The establishment of aspirational milestones

was identied as important by a number of
informants because this allowed individuals
to have a plan. This could include a range
of elements from: planning to meet the costs
and commitments associated with training;
identifying when and how to make steps
forward (such as job transfers; and how to
appropriately draft and participate in job
selection and recruitment processes.

Informants argue that in order for Indigenous

workers to achieve positive long term
employment participation, local communities
must be engaged in the process of job making
and job keeping. Local engagement with a
community requires something more than
consultation, liaison and negotiation in order
to be effective and genuine. As one informant
states There needs to be ownership of a
program, by the local community. While it is
important to acknowledge the diversity across

52

of an Indigenous employment program, against

what they perceive to be great odds. The
following sentiments reect the power of this
approach, in terms of helping to deliver career
outcomes.

Indigenous communities, and that urban

Indigenous communities may also vary greatly
in their experience to more rural communities,
informants still assert a need for community
afrmation and support for employment
engagement for individual Indigenous workers.

Engagement with a community means genuine

community pridenot announcements by
an employer but the voice of a community
expressing this (key informant, not for prot
operator).

This is strongly afrmed by research, both

domestically and internationally (Harrison
& Lindsay 2009), but also in the interviews
conducted for this project. As Constable
notes (2009) Of critical importance is the need
for employers to develop closer relationships
with Aboriginal people, communities and
organisations, in order to better understand the
social and economic challenges experienced
by Aboriginal people and better partner with
Aboriginal people to implement strategies that

those negotiations were not a straightforward

thingat one point the community withdrew, but
we slowly earned trust from the community
we kept the discussions opencontinued to
have meetingsand were able to move forward
(large employer regional).

address these (Constable 2009: 6). In other

contexts this is also described as authentic
engagement. This need for authentic
engagement was echoed by informants for this
project as well.

One informant, a mainstream employer with

historically little experience in the realm of
Indigenous program design, described the
engagement challenge.
you need to find the leaders, the people who
are truly representative of the communities for
which they speak. You will sometimes come
up against people who are vocal, but the real
leaders may not be those people. You may
not find them standing on the streetyou
sometimes have to dig to find them. Its not
written down somewhere.

partnership and local local localbetter

integration between that universal employment
program stuff and specialised interventionsbut
the local level thats where it comes to life (key
informant, consultant to Indigenous labour
market intermediary).
The concept of a local community career is
essential (intermediary B).

One interviewee describes the challenge

of this process, and the need for genuine
reection on the part of the HR manager, or
key organisational gure spearheading the
initiative.

No matter how well designed a program might

be, the local community is the key to making it
happen (intermediary A).
In discussion of career however, informants
extended this notion even further. Informants
pointed to the establishment of practices and
relationships which can be maintained in the
long term and this seemed to primarily rest
on the ingredients of people and persistence.
This revisits and reects the notion of a
champion or advocate who is prepared to
ght for the establishment of, or continuance

to start an indigenous program you need to do

it for the right reasons, not just to tick a box. Be
real about it because if youre not, people will
see it through it straight away. The formation of
these programs must be genuine ,that means
putting your hand on your heart and being real
about what you can provide, and being willing
to genuinely talk about changethis can be a
lengthy and stressful process at times.

53

54

deliver true insight to Indigenous workforce

experience in the long term, the research
community in Australia remains at the drawing
board stage. This means that an accurate
estimate as to the full costings associated with
delivery of these indicators is not currently
possible, as much exploratory work (including
methodological and conceptual baseline issues
associated with identifying and then collecting
data on identied relevant data items) remains
to be done. Some nal recommendations
regarding next steps, are outlined in Table 2.

MOVING FORWARD BEST

PRACTICE AND QUANTITATIVE
NEXT STEPS
This report argues that further, signicant
work needs to occur both in the realm of
qualitative investigation of the best practice
principle, and how it might be developed,
and in terms of quantitative consideration.
Indeed, it might be said that to develop the
employment and career indicators that could

Table 2: Relative Value of Research Options for understanding Indigenous Job and Career Transitions

Project description

Output

Relative value to the body of

knowledge in this eld

A1. Consolidation of current data stores,

including previously published tables and some
previously unpublished tables

Frequency tables and reportage

of basic indigenous labour market
indicators.

Low

A2. Creative use of current data stores,

including multivariate analysis to investigate
links between employment factors and
Indigenous wellbeing

Diagrams and reportage

Low
(Productivity Commission report
pending )

B1. Expansion of AES job tenure reporting

Reports enumerating job tenure

up to at least 65 weeks

Medium; capacity for accurate

reporting on success, based on
tenure

B2. Upgrading storage of current AES

qualitative information to enable retrieval

Raw information relating to

constraints and opportunities for
on-going employment

Medium; this process does not

provide analysis but enables it into
the future.

B3. Coding, analysis and reporting based on

current stores of qualitative information held
by AES (example based on 120 clients with a
range of tenure lengths)

Report on the constraints and

opportunities associated with ongoing employment

Medium-high contingent on the

quality of the data currently held

B4. Focus groups of AES eld ofcers (example

based on up to 5 focus groups)

Report on the constraints and

opportunities associated with ongoing employment

Medium - high

C1.Qualitative work to develop framework to

understand and interrogate concepts of career

A conceptual framework for the

analysis of career

High

C2. Development and administration of

longitudinal Indigenous workers survey, (annual
for 5 years)

Annual reporting on career and

job transitions

High contingent on C1.

D1. Career map of Indigenous employment:

a multi-method project bringing together
Indigenous labour market statistics with career
mapping to compare where opportunities are
located for Indigenous workers

A report outlining the

characteristics of career models
and where they are located in
the labour market compared
with the Indigenous workforce
participation

High contingent on C1.

55

KF18 There are strong arguments

on Indigenous Australians using current ABS

data. In particular the Closing the Gap COAG
initiative has generated reporting across key
areas of Indigenous disadvantage. The most
recent version of the Key Indicators report
on Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage
includes much of the most reliable data
describing labour market participation and
income distribution. The Commission is also
currently in the process of using the NATSISS
survey to investigate the impact of various
socio-economic factors on labour market
outcomes for Indigenous Australians. This
report is due for publication in September 2011.
CAEPR are also in the process of producing
further work on the links between aspirations
of Indigenous young people and how this
compares with their labour market outcomes.

for undertaking further qualitative

work which could be used as the
foundation for future statistical
(quantitative) tools of measurement
on career. Without signicant
resources, the most feasible option,
in both resource and capability
terms, appears to be improving the
collection methods and insights
surrounding agency administrative
data (for the purposes of this study,
the AES experience was used as the
case for examination).
Given the complexity and resource constraints
associated with the production of new forms
of data, there is no single or superior direction
in terms of improving quantitative data
capable of delivering the necessary insights on
Indigenous careers. A summary of the range
of options available, is provided below.

Before further interrogation of current data

stores takes place, thorough investigation
of work-in-progress should be undertaken. Consideration of partnerships with
organisations such as CAEPR might also be
considered given the high levels of
institutional knowledge of data relating to
Indigenous Australians.

A1 and A2 work using current

national data stores
It is our assessment that much has already
been done to interrogate the reliable data
that exists. Producing a report based on this
information would most likely repeat work
that is already being done. With regard to the
issue of a biannual or biennial employment
report the production of a report of this kind,
we argue, would add little value in terms of
signicant insight on the issue of employment
longevity, career formation, career
development, or pathways to career success.
More hearteningly however, our interviews with
key informants and literature review reveal
that more conceptual work is being done, and
efforts are being made to explore data more
creatively and fruitfully than has previously
been the case.

B1 B4 work using AES by-product

data
While this range of research activities are
small in scale and conned to the activities
of the AES, the organisation (and other
intermediaries) occupy a pivotal position from
which to view Indigenous employment due
to their engagement with both employers
and employees over a period of time. In
effect, while the population of the research
subject is limited, the potential for indepth understanding from and of a range of
perspectives is profound.
A critical reason for AES success is the
engagement of Indigenous eld ofcers
to connect with Indigenous clients. This

Work has been done by the Productivity

Commission to amass and improve reporting

56

relationship is also likely to provide a very

good basis for the collection of insightful
information on employee experience. While
collection of those insights appears to
be taking place in the AES, they remain
unplumbed for enhancing organisational and
more general understandings of Indigenous
employment. There are various research
options that would enable collection,
storage, retrieval and analysis of that
untapped material.

the careful scoping, design and execution

of each research activity. For example, the
value and validity of an analysis of current
documentation (particularly records of
interview between eld ofcers and clients)
assumes that a scoping process would be
undertaken to test ethical issues of privacy,
and review the quality of the data.

At the very least AES data collection could be

improved to lengthen the formal tracking of job
tenure to enable expanded reporting from 26
week tenure up to 65 weeks with relatively
little effort. However, as has already been
observed job tenure as a stand-alone variable

These projects are large scale, in the national

interest, and would require considerable
resources, broad engagement, and benet
from bringing together a range of expertise.
Pursuing the survey is a long term goal and
would most practically be centralised under
the auspices of the ABS. Developing a model
for understanding and interrogating career is
a pre-requisite for undertaking any other work
in this eld. This could be achieved in a range
of ways and would require specic scoping. It
could include smaller projects concentrating
on specic pockets of practice and experience
(for example, projects similar to those in
sketched out in B2-4).

C1 C3 - New national empirical work

has limited value in terms of describing

career experience. The great advantage for
the AES in having this data is the potential
for contextual information to accompany
those measures. However, work would need
to be done to render the data useable. The
options in Table 2 range from the raw storage
of the data to enable basic retrieval (B2),
a project using documentation already in
the system (B3), and nally, collecting new
tacit information from ofcers of the AES
that is currently undocumented. All or some
of these processes would allow for AES to
reect on their own practice, but it might also,
if designed appropriately, contribute more
generally to understandings of Indigenous
employment experience, and provide
information relating to career. Further to this,
the AES assert that, looking forward, both
national and local data collection in this realm
should: focus on actual engagement activities;
provide a coded system which has national and
local connection to ABS systems; and enable
the exploration of generational growth and
learned experiences12.

The benets of undertaking new empirical

work to understand career concepts also
provides the means to upgrade current
collections to better capture issues associated
with career. The limitations of point-in-time
data would remain. However, the potential to
creatively use data or improve surveys would
be made clearer. The project outlined in D1
provides an example of such a study.

It should be noted, however, that the actual

benet of these studies would be shaped in

12.

In addition, the AES assert that provision of an improved and nationally coded data system is likely to enhance the longitudinal
insights provided by data in this area.

57

D1 Future potential for current data

stores career mapping

also difcult to estimate the full cost that

might be associated with production of these
kinds of indicators, since so much conceptual
work remains to be done.

Improved understanding of patterns of career

dynamics requires an analysis of demandside factors, including how the prevailing
state of the labour market and employer
behaviour play a part in shaping employment
and career prospects. The research option
outlined in the table labelled as D1 suggests
such a project. Were there some capacity
to report on the labour market features that
appear to either facilitate or constrain career
development approaches to employment and
where they are likely to be found in terms
of industry, occupation and location (using
postcode Census data), this information
could be cross checked with the Indigenous
populations and where they are located in the
labour market. This could provide a map of
Indigenous employment based on the nature of
career development likely to be found in those
sections of the labour market.

KF19 Current approaches to drafting

best practice guidelines need to be
altered, in light of the longevity and
career signicance of employment
undertaken. This adaptation should
focus on improving the usability of
guidelines, and offer users with the
ability to assess (ie. diagnose) core
labour market barriers in a more
systematic way, and with greater
differentiation.
Ideally, best practice models should offer
stakeholders with an ability to assess
and diagnose different factors that may
create Indigenous disadvantage, in a range
of workforce contexts, so that differential
(setting-appropriate) responses and
interventions might be developed. This report
concludes with a possible diagnostic model,
presented below.

As a pre-requisite, qualitative work would have

to be done to establish the key factors that
inuence or shape different career trajectories
(as per C1). This would lay the ground for a
statistical analysis to assess the extent and
patterns across the labour market using
current data ABS sources such as the Census
and Labour Force. By way of example, it is
apparent from some of the case study work in
this project, that job features (eg nature of the
employment contract, part time versus fulltime
work, casual versus permanent work) can help
to shape career prospects. The location (based
on region, occupational group and industry)
of different types of employment contracts
can be established using various Labour Force
statistics held by the ABS. An analysis of the
Indigenous population could then establish
their career potential based on labour market
location. In the absence of categories for
dening concepts of career, it is difcult to
assess the real potential of current collections
to illustrate and build this kind of map. It is

58

59

CONCLUSION
This report has considered both quantitative
and qualitative research instruments, and
their application in exploring the experience of
Indigenous workers in the modern Australian
labour market. Within these considerations,
the research process has also considered
two key issues the viability of a regular
employment update on Indigenous workers,
and the viability of the best practice principle.
In both cases, the research identies that
much work remains to be done. The regular
production of an employment or workforce
update on Indigenous workers, would require
headline measures which offer insight to
Indigenous experience and comparability to
the mainstream labour market. Both of these
requirements lie beyond the reach of current
statistical holdings. Indeed the development
of new (and reliable) instruments, would take
signicant commitment in both resource and
research terms. Further to this, the paper
identies that previous research on Indigenous
employment has presented a somewhat
skewed perspective on barriers and drivers
for employment success. This paper, therefore,
presents an alternative analytical framework.
The 4X4 model allows the researcher (or policy
maker or practitioner) to identify multiple
factors, which directly impact employment
outcomes, in considerations of barriers and
drivers to employment. This research paper
has also examined the role of qualitative
technique, and in particular, the contribution
of best practice approaches to the eld
of Indigenous employment research and
practice. While the notion of best practice is
argued to offer some benets, the research
identies that the checklist approach to best
practice requires revision. An alternative
and diagnostic model is presented which
aims to expand the concept of best practice
in two main ways. The alternative diagnostic
model presented, offers greater scope for
practitioners to differentiate between diverse

barriers to sustainability in employment, and

therefore draft more appropriate and targeted
solutions. The model also aims to expand the
usability of the best practice concept, from a
practitioner point of view.

60

Differential Diagnostic Model for Career Development

61

Indigenous Australians: Literature Review,

DEST, Canberra. http://www.dest.gov.au/
NR/rdonlyres/90E8C9F7-109B-47BC-AEC3EC1802B2F96A/1093/06_lit_review.pdf

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65

APPENDIX
Methodology
for this project considers the implications of
these ndings for two main issues production
of a periodic Indigenous employment and
career outcomes report, and viability and
usefulness of the best practice concept in
furthering understanding of Indigenous
career outcomes.

The research process has included three

main phases. The rst phase considered
relevant literature and statistics in order to
understand whether it is possible to dene and
interrogate data items capable of observing
successful career development in both
mainstream, and Indigenous employment
contexts. The second phase solicited input
from more than 25 key informants in the eld
of both statistical analysis and Indigenous
employment program design. Ultimately, 18
key informants were available and elected to
participate in extended, semi-structured and
open-ended qualitative interviews for this
project. An average interview for this project
took approximately one hour. Key informants
were drawn from two sources the AES, and
the literature review also yielded a shortlist
of potential contacts for this project. The
key informants represent a mix of metainformants including: high prole and long
standing experts in the eld of Indigenous
employment policy; academics identied
as specialists in the eld of Indigenous
employment; and leading statisticians in both
of these elds. Meta-informants also helped
to identify some possible key informants in the
eld of workplace program design and delivery.
Key informants on workplace program
design in the eld of Indigenous workforce
development include: employers identied as
long standing best practice operators; labour
market intermediaries who have similarly
been identied as leaders in the delivery
of successful employment outcomes for
Indigenous peoples; and consultants to this
process (advisors, ex-program coordinators,
long standing experts in the employment
policy eld). This eld work explored core
aspects of successful career formation for
Indigenous workers, and dening features of
best practice design that provide preconditions
for this formation. The nal phase of research

It should also be noted that this project, by

design, is awed by the same premise which
much research in this eld also suffers. The
focus of the analysis is primarily on Indigenous
employment programs/models/interventions,
which are inherently collective, rather than
individual in their design. It is important to
acknowledge that many Indigenous men and
women across Australia have successfully built
satisfying careers, outside the auspices of
these programs. Because of the nature of this
project however, their experience lies beyond
the scope of our exploration.

66

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