Feeling motivated yet? Long-term unemployed people's perspectives on the implementation of workfare in Australia

A key thrust of labour market policy in Australia and many other western countries is that long-term unemployed people lack the personal motivation to engage proactively and successfully in the search for paid employment. In this paper we argue that the implementation of what are experienced as paternal workfare programs are counter-productive to achieving the official policy goal of improving self-efficacy and gaining paid employment. The empirical discussion presented in the paper is based on a semi-longitudinal study that tracked 75 long-term unemployed people in three different labour markets in Australia between 2005-2007. The study was funded by the Australian Research Council and Jobs Australia.