In Australia’s welfare sector obligations are ‘mutual’, but profits flow only one way

As jobseekers face humiliating' tasks to maintain payments, vast network of job agencies rakes in hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars

Two words make the money go round in Australia's multi-billion dollar welfare-to-work industry: mutual obligation.

When someone loses their job and applies for the dole, they are sent to an outsourced job agency to get help looking for work. It triggers a payment to the provider - and the possibility of more to come.