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The concept of mutual obligation underpins Australian employment services. In return for receiving income support, there are three elements of mutual obligation: to actively seek work; to improve one’s competitiveness in the labour market; and to contribute to the community. Failing to undertake mutual obligation activities results in sanctions, usually unemployment benefit suspension or cancellation. In the year 2017/18, one mutual obligation activity, compulsory employment service provider appointments, accounted for more than 93 per cent of sanctions. The study reported here explores unemployed and recently employed workers’ experiences of appointments and their attitudes to the concept of mutual obligation. The findings are that unemployed workers say appointments have little utility for advancing elements of mutual obligation and are psychologically harmful. Non‐attendance may be a form of self‐protection although seeking a medical exemption or dropping out of the system altogether also appears to be a common self‐protection strategy. We also find that non‐attendance at appointments cannot be conflated with a negative attitude to mutual obligation and that unemployed workers want services that are effective and psychologically positive to help them to fulfil their mutual obligations.

This research examines the experiences of unemployed workers who report they have been parked or creamed by their employment services provider. Using focus group methodology, the research findings suggest that the experiences of being parked or creamed do not simply reflect quantitative metrics such as appointment frequency, and are experienced primarily as reflections of the quality of the transactions that occur in appointments. The findings suggest that parking and creaming are pervasive with harmful consequences for unemployed workers. Parking, on the one hand, appears to exacerbate the scarring effect of unemployment. Creaming, on the other hand, is not experienced as a benefit because rapid placement into employment is likely to be directed toward underemployment or precarious employment rather than sustainable employment. A second type of creaming is also described, where providers seek to take credit, sometimes coercively, for unemployed workers finding their own jobs. The findings also suggest that the Department of Employment's actions to date to curb the practices have not been successful and could be improved if unemployed workers were more clearly recognised as having a stake in the provision of high-quality employment services and given suitable mechanisms to identify and select providers that will not park or cream them.

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