Indigenous Employment Index

Centre PersonnelRebecca Cassells, Michael Dockery, Alan Duncan, Jaslin Kalsi, Lili Loan Vu, Astghik Mavisakalyan, Silvia Salazar
Project StatusCurrent (started June 2021)

Project Summary

The Minderoo Foundation’s Generation One initiative pursues a goal to achieve employment parity with and for Indigenous Australians within one generation. This means engaging and retaining 250,000 Indigenous people in employment in the next two decades.

Noting that the lack of data and limited reporting on Indigenous employment presents an ongoing challenge to achieving parity, Generation One engaged Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre and Murawin Consulting to undertake a large-scale project to examine the current and potential role of major employers in activating the community to focus on Indigenous employment.

The research sought to (a) quantify the numbers of Indigenous people employed by major employers, and (b) collect information about the various programs and policies these employers have put in place, in an effort to increase Indigenous employment.

Indicators collected across five domains including governance and reporting, attraction and recruitment, retention and development, authenticity and leadership and community engagement were used to develop a unique Indigenous Employment Index of some of Australia’s largest workplaces, together with individual employer benchmark reports.

Together, these data sources have delivered significant new insights into, and helped build a clearer picture of, Indigenous employment and a greater understanding of “what works” to recruit and retain Indigenous peoples.

The report identifies a series of actions to address the barriers to Indigenous people’s employment and champion the benefits of greater Indigenous employment.