What did I tell you?
Jobkeeper is merely use of taxpayer money to provide a short term bail out of employers, it benefits employers more than employees; at best it stalls employee layoff but it wouldn't stop employers making more jobs redundant after the scheme is over, it would be then that we will see a spike in jobless numbers. It may have bought employees a few months of work instead of suffering immediate layoffs amongst employers that couldnt sustain and for employers that could, it was a mere transfer of taxpayers money without real benefits to employees (some of them actually suffered loss of income while employers saved cashflows).
Boeing uses JobKeeper on redundant jobsDavid Marin-GuzmanWorkplace correspondent AFR
Jun 12, 2020 – 5.39pm
Boeing is using JobKeeper payments to pay the wages of hundreds of staff it has already flagged for redundancy, raising questions about whether the scheme is subsidising
fake jobs.
The aircraft manufacturer qualified for the wage subsidy for about 1000 factory workers at its Fishermans Bend site in Port Melbourne, 230 of which will be made redundant as part of a rationalisation announced before it registered for the scheme.
Legal experts said there was nothing in the JobKeeper scheme that prevented the wage subsidy being used for redundant workers.
However, economists have pointed to the case as a graphic illustration of the scheme encouraging inefficiencies in the labour market.
Boeing was already hard hit from the grounding of its 737 MAX aircraft last year following two deadly crashes but the pandemic wiped out demand for new aircraft.
Despite the manufacturer confirming the job cuts in April, the workers are still employed with little work to do as they wait for the staged redundancy process to kick in at the end of July through to the end of November.
Sources said some workers wanted to leave now but JobKeeper was holding back their redundancy and they would not qualify for a payout if they resign.
A spokeswoman for Boeing Aerostructures Australia, which supplies Boeing in the US, said the company had been "severely impacted by COVID-19" due to a sharp reduction in demand.
"Accessing JobKeeper for Boeing Aerostructures Australia’s advanced manufacturing business was critical for its long-term viability, which is why our union leadership worked with us on this important initiative," she said.
"Boeing appreciates the government’s approval of our application, and we are adhering to all aspects of the JobKeeper provisions.
"With a legacy of employing Australians for more than 90 years in Fishermans Bend, Boeing Aerostructures Australia – with JobKeeper support – can sustain its operations while investing in our people, technology and the Australian supply chain for future competitiveness."
Australian Manufacturing Workers Union Victorian secretary Tony Mavromat said "assisting Boeing in the short-term is necessary to ensure that we retain the skills and expertise we need in this highly specialised area".
The Morrison government is currently
reviewing whether to extend the JobKeeper scheme past September after introducing it so employers can maintain jobs through the government-imposed lockdown.
University of Melbourne economist Roger Wilkins said the poorly targeted nature of the scheme, necessary to "get it out the door" quickly, meant some workers were being kept in jobs that had no economic foundation in the medium to long term.
"[Boeing] is quite a graphic illustration of it because it's really quite unambiguous that they would have been made redundant," he said.
He argued that, while the airline industry could be the exception, the JobKeeper scheme needed to be more squarely focused on economic efficiency rather than income support.
"At the moment, to keep JobKeeper going has really perverse effects on labour supply incentives, incentives for firms to reinvent themselves and adapt to the new structure of demand in the economy," he said.
Barrister Ian Neil, SC confirmed that "the JobKeeper scheme doesn't make future redundancy a dis-entitling factor".
"If the employer is eligible and the employee is eligible then they will be entitled to the JobKeeper payment even if the employer has earmarked the employee for redundancy," he said.
The scheme also allowed employers to stand down workers without that constituting a redundancy and let stood-down workers work secondary jobs.
Mr Neil said that as well as "keeping jobs" JobKeeper's other objective was to stimulate the economy and so subsidising redundant workers may still be justified.
But he said: "I think we really will come to the end of September [and] discover there are very many jobs that have been preserved but are no longer viable."
