The Albanese government has promised to undertake “once-in-a-generation” reforms of the government’s employment services system, which could affect the roughly one million Australians who access unemployment payments including JobSeeker.

Announcing the changes at the National Press Club on Wednesday, Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth said the current system was “ill-equipped to respond” to unemployed people’s needs and is:

letting too many people in the caseload fall through the cracks, and failing to support them into a job.

letting too many people in the caseload fall through the cracks, and failing to support them into a job.

The goal of the changes is to move from a “one-size-fits-all” approach of helping people find work, to giving different levels of support depending on what people need. However, there’s no clear start date for these changes yet.

The government’s plan to make improvements to a punitive system is welcome. Yet only three years ago, it was talking about even more ambitious changes.

Here’s what’s just been promised – and where the government still has the opportunity to do more.

What’s going to change?

The federal government says it will overhaul the current “one‑size‑fits‑all” system of Workforce Australia. This government service helps people find and keep secure work and manages the “mutual obligation” requirements for receiving certain payments.

For example, an individual........

© The Conversation