11 April 2012

ACT employer confidence plumetting

| johnboy
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The ABC is reporting on doom and gloom amongst the ACT’s employers as business starts to hold its breathe to see what the May budget will bring.

It’s worth remembering thousands of Canberrans clutching redundancy payments will be no bad thing for the local economy in the short term.

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HenryBG said :

c_c said :

Zenacat said :

HenryBG said :

c_c said :

When the PM or a minister says “my advice”, chances are it’s not exclusively from the PS anymore anyway.

Ah, so it might have actually come from a subject-matter expert then? That will be a nice change.

Ha! The ‘subject-matter’ expert will more than likely be someone who previously worked for the department, who was made redundant, and then placed back as a contractor / consultant, costing twice as much. And no offence to any contracting folk out there, in the policy / programme areas, there are a lot of useless contractors…..

I can confirm knowing of someone personally who did just that. Left the PS and returned straight away to consult the same people he had being working for as a private consultant. Judging by the car, it worked well for him.

Yes, the latest rort.

The ACT local government has this problem x about 1,000,000. I guess it’s always had more of a problem with rorting than the federal govenrment has.

If they are “redundant”, they are no longer needed. EVER.
Not: massive payout, 6 months off and then straight back in at twice the cost. GONE FOR GOOD.

Yeah this is a bit pointless for all concerned when people are “fired” and paid a large package and then rehired either 6 months later or sooner if as a contractor and for the same or more money. All that does is allow the APS to claim that they have “cut staff” but haven’t really. More importantly, the goal of cutting staff was to save money. If they are just taking a paid vacation for 6 months and then returning to work, it’s not saving the taxpayers any money at all. When after they have their job back 6 months later, the person probably wouldn’t feel so bad about it, but right after losing their job and having that uncertainty and stress wouldn’t be worthwhile for the staff member either. So it’s a lose for all concerned. Either cut people and actually reduce the cost, or else don’t bother worrying people.

c_c said :

Zenacat said :

HenryBG said :

c_c said :

When the PM or a minister says “my advice”, chances are it’s not exclusively from the PS anymore anyway.

Ah, so it might have actually come from a subject-matter expert then? That will be a nice change.

Ha! The ‘subject-matter’ expert will more than likely be someone who previously worked for the department, who was made redundant, and then placed back as a contractor / consultant, costing twice as much. And no offence to any contracting folk out there, in the policy / programme areas, there are a lot of useless contractors…..

I can confirm knowing of someone personally who did just that. Left the PS and returned straight away to consult the same people he had being working for as a private consultant. Judging by the car, it worked well for him.

Yes, the latest rort.

The ACT local government has this problem x about 1,000,000. I guess it’s always had more of a problem with rorting than the federal govenrment has.

If they are “redundant”, they are no longer needed. EVER.
Not: massive payout, 6 months off and then straight back in at twice the cost. GONE FOR GOOD.

I-filed said :

What does “plumetting” mean?

They’re the little boxes at the top of bourgeois curtains. Plumettes.

What does “plumetting” mean?

Zenacat said :

HenryBG said :

c_c said :

When the PM or a minister says “my advice”, chances are it’s not exclusively from the PS anymore anyway.

Ah, so it might have actually come from a subject-matter expert then? That will be a nice change.

Ha! The ‘subject-matter’ expert will more than likely be someone who previously worked for the department, who was made redundant, and then placed back as a contractor / consultant, costing twice as much. And no offence to any contracting folk out there, in the policy / programme areas, there are a lot of useless contractors…..

I can confirm knowing of someone personally who did just that. Left the PS and returned straight away to consult the same people he had being working for as a private consultant. Judging by the car, it worked well for him.

HenryBG said :

c_c said :

When the PM or a minister says “my advice”, chances are it’s not exclusively from the PS anymore anyway.

Ah, so it might have actually come from a subject-matter expert then? That will be a nice change.

Ha! The ‘subject-matter’ expert will more than likely be someone who previously worked for the department, who was made redundant, and then placed back as a contractor / consultant, costing twice as much. And no offence to any contracting folk out there, in the policy / programme areas, there are a lot of useless contractors…..

HenryBG said :

c_c said :

When the PM or a minister says “my advice”, chances are it’s not exclusively from the PS anymore anyway.

Ah, so it might have actually come from a subject-matter expert then? That will be a nice change.

+1

HenryBG said :

c_c said :

When the PM or a minister says “my advice”, chances are it’s not exclusively from the PS anymore anyway.

Ah, so it might have actually come from a subject-matter expert then? That will be a nice change.

That would be ideal. But the cynic in me thinks it more like The Hollowmen than The West Wing in reality.

Viewers of the Gruen Transfer may recall the admission that many new toothpaste products came from the marketing company, not Colgate, hence you end up with a product range that looks just as shambolic as a lot of policy these days, with just as many half kept promises, clever phrases and strategic use of weazel words.

c_c said :

When the PM or a minister says “my advice”, chances are it’s not exclusively from the PS anymore anyway.

Ah, so it might have actually come from a subject-matter expert then? That will be a nice change.

EvanJames said :

The way it’s going there will be no APS for Abbott to cut.

That’s what’s worrying me. He’s made a big to-do about slashing the fat cats of the bloated Canberra public service etc etc blah blah, and he’s going to have to deliver. The damage it does won’t bother him or Hockey or the rest of them, and their slavering constituents will be knitting away, waiting for the heads to roll.

Rudd, and now Gillard, imposed restraint after restraint on APS spending… some departments have been in a de-facto recruitment freeze for years now.

Whether the Rabbit Regime imposes broad-based funding cuts, or actually cuts specific programs, is anyone’s guess. If I was in the Health department, I’d be concerned as they keep mentioning that one, and it’s the one that Mr Rabbit has the most first-hand knowledge of. My guess is they’ll privatise specific functions, whole arms of the department.

Safe to Say Abbott will make cuts to the Public Service, then promptly hire back a heap of them as advisors, who rather than being frank and fearless, are pandering yes men.

When the PM or a minister says “my advice”, chances are it’s not exclusively from the PS anymore anyway.

The way it’s going there will be no APS for Abbott to cut.

That’s what’s worrying me. He’s made a big to-do about slashing the fat cats of the bloated Canberra public service etc etc blah blah, and he’s going to have to deliver. The damage it does won’t bother him or Hockey or the rest of them, and their slavering constituents will be knitting away, waiting for the heads to roll.

Rudd, and now Gillard, imposed restraint after restraint on APS spending… some departments have been in a de-facto recruitment freeze for years now. Whether the Rabbit Regime imposes broad-based funding cuts, or actually cuts specific programs, is anyone’s guess. If I was in the Health department, I’d be concerned as they keep mentioning that one, and it’s the one that Mr Rabbit has the most first-hand knowledge of. My guess is they’ll privatise specific functions, whole arms of the department.

Mezza76 has it covered in that APS VR’s in previous times have indeed led to an exodus from Canberra along with a corresponding slump in housing prices as a glut of homes hit the market. This will be exasperated as the race to cash in on the current bloated prices will be thick and fast.
Add to this the possibility of the rental market vacancy rate sky rocketing for the same reasons, it would be a brave soul to snap up the endless new appartment offerings before June.
My, we seem to have short memories

neanderthalsis11:55 am 11 Apr 12

“It’s worth remembering thousands of Canberrans clutching redundancy payments will be no bad thing for the local economy in the short term.”

But those thousands will be spending less in the months before their redundancy and they will all move down to Batemans Bay or back to Syd/Melb. So short term hits to retail trade, a depressed housing market as folks leave and new ones don’t move into Canberra due to hiring freezes (yay for housing affordability) and as often happens with VRs, the good ones go because they know they can find work elsewhere, the dead wood remains entrenched.

On the upside there will be a plenitude of consultants hitting the market.

mezza76 said :

So it’s actually business who have a decent idea on how this will work out – the Canberra economy will take a hit in the short term and recover over the medium-long term.

Bear in mind the pervasive likelihood of Mr Rabbit and his gang getting in at the 2013 election. Canberra will be pretty buggered at that point. People might be already thinking along those lines.

devils_advocate11:35 am 11 Apr 12

Lazy I said :

EvanJames said :

The jobs bit of Saturday’s CT has been getting thinner and thinner. Things are gearing right down.

According to the CT, no one in Canberra sells cars anymore either.. that.. or no one actually reads / uses the CT anymore.

The death of the car classifieds must be wholly and solely attributable to allclassifieds, surely. That, combined with the online APS gazette, must basically make the entire printed classifieds thing redundant.

EvanJames said :

The jobs bit of Saturday’s CT has been getting thinner and thinner. Things are gearing right down.

According to the CT, no one in Canberra sells cars anymore either.. that.. or no one actually reads / uses the CT anymore.

“It’s worth remembering thousands of Canberrans clutching redundancy payments will be no bad thing for the local economy in the short term.”

errr.. either you’ve never had one or have no idea how they work. What happens is the APS people who have been VR’d usually leave Canberra (as they cant work here for a period of time) and move to another state/country to find work (also redundancy payments are used to support households/pay debt – not usually as cash bonaza’s to buy from overpriced retail). Those who choose to retire early also holiday abroad or retire to the beach, etc.

So it’s actually business who have a decent idea on how this will work out – the Canberra economy will take a hit in the short term and recover over the medium-long term.

I think the job market has been quietly stagnating for a while now. A recruiter told me that for low-level APS positions, they had upwards of 30 reasonable applicants for each one. The jobs bit of Saturday’s CT has been getting thinner and thinner. Things are gearing right down.

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