Human Services Economic Paper 4: Job Quality Threats to Human Services Sustainability

This paper draws attention to, and shares information on, the impacts of poor job quality on the sustainability of human services delivery. Job quality is a shorthand description of the relativeattractiveness of employment in an industry. If job quality is low or high, it can directly havenegative or positive effects on the quality and quantity of services delivered and the sustainability of providers. In a highly competitive labour market, job quality becomes an important issue as
employers and industries compete for labour. Poor job quality results in labour shortages in an industry and impacts sustainability. Indicators of job quality are defined and discussed in this paper. The impacts of poor job quality are outlined with further detail on how the nature of the human services industry leads to a unique dynamic between job quality, funding, the workforce, and service provision. Australian government funding policies directly impact job quality. Broader economic benefits associated with prioritising job quality in human services are also discussed.Overall, job quality is integral to the sustainability of human services. As an indicator of employee satisfaction, job quality represents the desirability of a role when current and future workforce personnel consider career choices. An organisation’s inability to compete for employees due to low job quality reduces labour supply and hence service volume. This increases recruitment costs, loses in experienced personnel, and reduces of service capacity. Provision of human services can also be hindered by low employee engagement and high employee turnover as service users bear the impacts of service quality and quantity changes. Volunteers also assess job quality and,
although unpaid, cost an organisation in training and could otherwise support funding shortfalls in the provision of labour. Funding structures established in Australian governments’ policies create insecure compensation for services and hence serve to reduce job quality due to a lack of certainty. As a workforce with a large headcount, minimal wage, and significant female-worker dominance, investing public funds in job quality in human services is a long-term, high return strategy in terms of both the sustainability of the industry; benefiting community and economy.