The Role of Work Integration Social Enterprise in Employment Services Reforms: Perspectives from the Ecosystem

A new insights report explores the views of those working in government, employment services, social enterprise and the wider community sector.

Image: Staff at Australian Spatial Analytics, one of Australia’s leading jobs-focused social enterprises

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Australia’s employment services system struggles to support disadvantaged, long-term participants into sustainable employment. To address this, the Select Committee Review of Workforce Australia Employment Services (Workforce Australia Review) advocated for social enterprises to ‘play a greater role’, including ‘bringing a greater number of WISEs [work integration social enterprises] into the system’. WISEs are for-purpose businesses that create employment and pathways into employment for people and places experiencing barriers to work.

This insights report is the second in a series from the Activating Employment Futures Through Work Integration Social Enterprise project, which seeks to share knowledge to scale the employment outcomes of WISE in Australia. Drawing on interviews with 29 key informants from across government, employment services, social enterprise, and the wider community sector, this report focuses on the role of WISEs in active labour market policy (ALMP) and their potential contribution to the broader employment services system.

Interviews were undertaken in the context of growing government interest in a stronger role for WISEs in the employment services system. Based on themes arising from the interviews, the report explores how WISEs are understood in relation to employment services, including:

• How key stakeholders in the field understand WISEs;
• The degree to which WISEs may contribute to supply-side and demand-side oriented ALMP measures; and
• Complexities of applying outcomes-based funding approaches to WISEs

Despite broad agreement on WISEs’ purpose and benefits, the research finds there is ambiguity in how WISEs are defined and uncertainty around what ‘embedding’ WISEs in the system would involve in terms of the roles that WISEs might perform.

The Role of Work Integration Social Enterprise (WISE)  in Employment Services Reforms: Perspectives from the Ecosystem

Download the Insights Report (PDF)

Download the Insights Report (Word)

Read about the previous Insights Report – Current Policy Debates and Their Implications for Inclusive Employment Through Social Enterprise: Key Insights From a Rapid Scoping Review

The project is funded by the Australian Research Council Linkage Program (LP220100323) in partnership with White Box Enterprises, Westpac Foundation, Outlook Australia, and STREAT. Academics from the University of Melbourne and the University of Queensland are undertaking the research.


For any enquiries related to this report, please contact Dr Chabel Khan, Research Fellow at Melbourne Social Equity Institute, chabel.khan@unimelb.edu.au.