Review confirms unsurprisingly high use of JobKeeper flexibilities

A report recently tabled in Federal Parliament by IR Minister, Christian Porter, has identified approximately 75% of employers that participated in the JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme utilised temporary ‘flexibilities’, such as modified stand-downs, to keep their businesses afloat and maintain staff in employment during the peak of the pandemic.

Minister Porter said the review, conducted by international management consultancy, Nous Group, surveyed over 1800 employers and found general support for the JobKeeper scheme from employers and unions, which had “mostly cooperated well through a challenging set of circumstances, illustrating just how important cooperation is to industrial relations”.

The survey results identified employers reporting the flexibilities to be “important” or “useful” to most of them in maintaining their operations, with directions to work a reduced number of hours being the most common, changes of duties or location of work used less frequently, and directions requiring a full stand down applied the least. The survey also found office workers had often been happy to work from home without a formal direction being necessary.

The review further highlighted that, despite legislation requiring JobKeeper enabling directions (JED) be issued in writing, over 40% of survey respondents only issued JED’s verbally. This non-compliance was not raised as a concern by employers or unions with the review establishing there was “no sense of ill-intent in this”, noting, verbal arrangements were most likely used soon after the laws came into force, when businesses were reacting urgently to rapidly changing circumstances.

The independent review was initiated by Minister Porter as required by s789GZB of the Fair Work Act 2009.