Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 149 Why is the unemployment rate lying?
43 Plays4 hours ago
RNA episode 149 includes news for 24 February 2026 featuring the latest on Australia's most controversial recruiter, Luke Hemmings, the likely final instalment in the Employment Hero–Seek saga. Company updates from PeopleIN and The Next Group, along with the latest unemployment data and earnings results from Ignite Limited and Ashley Services Group.
Recommended
Transcript
Sponsor Introduction: Wingman Recruitment
00:00:08
Speaker
A big thank you to our sponsor, Wingman Recruitment, the smarter way to scale your recruitment business. They're fully trained remote professionals, take care of sourcing, admin and compliance, freeing your consultants to focus on placements and performance.
00:00:22
Speaker
It's time to grow with intention, not just grind. Find out more at wingmangroup.com.au via the services tab. This is the news for the 24th of February 2026.
Luke Hemmings' Fraud Case Resolution
00:00:34
Speaker
I'm Adele Last. And I'm Ross Klenit.
00:00:38
Speaker
Adele, Australia's most controversial recruiter, Luke Hemmings, has managed to avoid trial for at least six months after a mediation agreement was endorsed by a Gold Coast court last month.
00:00:51
Speaker
That's right, Ross. The Gold Coast Bulletin reported he was originally scheduled for a committal hearing at Southport Magistrates Court on the 20th of January over three fraud charges. Instead, his barrister told the court the matter would proceed to justice mediation.
Hemmings' Controversies and Business Issues
00:01:06
Speaker
Hemmings 32 has also operated under numerous aliases, including Dean Broadbelt, Lucas Hemmings, Dean Macillan, Dean Morgan, Harrison O'Connor, Nick Lloyd, Clay O'Connor and Harrison Isles.
00:01:22
Speaker
And regardless of his name, he's had a long history of controversy. The allegations in this current matter, though, are significant. He is accused of defrauding three companies, blockchain software developer FSoft, accounting practice software developer Practice Ignition, and bill payment automation developer Parakeet Payments, out of a combined $548,000 between the and the March
00:01:50
Speaker
He was charged after police raided the Southport office of his recruitment agency, White Fox Recruitment, the one that boasts 18 local, national and global accolades received to date in its branding from 2024. Oh, yes. God, I love those 18 awards.
00:02:07
Speaker
Anyway, instead of proceeding with the January hearing, Magistrate Joan White allowed the matter to move forward as civil mediation on the condition that Hemmings repays the more than half a million dollars within six months of The next court date is set for the 27th of August this year.
Legal and Financial Troubles of Hemmings
00:02:25
Speaker
Hemmings has been a blot on the recruitment industry for years, first in Canberra and then on the Gold Coast from late 2023. The Daily Mail reported in 2024 that another recruitment agency he ran, Lambert Wilcox Group, was ordered to close over a $170,000 debt.
00:02:42
Speaker
He also headed Coceptive Recruitment, which went into liquidation in 2021, owing credit $760,000. That company had previously traded as White Fox Recruitment Camera after he established the business with his mother in 2019. A revealing snapshot of the man's modus operandi appeared in a 14th of December 2023 article in the Courier-Mail.
00:03:05
Speaker
Lambert Wilcox, solely directed by Hemmings, was plunged into liquidation on the 7th of December 2023 after Supreme Court wind-up action by lender F-Soft, Direct Debit Facilitation Service. Court documents showed that $170,000 in funds were withdrawn in 15 transactions by third parties as direct debit claims using the Lambert Wilcox account in July that year.
00:03:30
Speaker
And despite all these, Hemmings holds sourcer rating of 4.56, although there hasn't been a new review since April 2025. And the handful of jobs currently listed on the White Fox website range wildly from sales consultants to labourers.
00:03:45
Speaker
I have covered Mr. Hemmings' erratic behaviour before, ah noting in a previous blog in November 2018, he fronted a Sydney court and admitted to using a phone service to harass and offend.
00:03:59
Speaker
Hemmings had called a personal trainer he knew in the middle of the night and had asked him inappropriate questions about his body. The case was ultimately thrown out on mental health grounds.
00:04:11
Speaker
And when I reported of these current charges in a July 2024 blog post, Hemmings threatened me with defamation, tactic that seems to surface whenever his professional narrative is challenged.
00:04:24
Speaker
In December 2023, when approached by the Courier-Mail for comment on publicity surrounding his earlier ventures, Hemmings denied that any of it was true.
00:04:35
Speaker
And to be fair, to date, he has not been convicted of any criminal offence. But now the clock is ticking. Ross, he has 219 days to pay the more than half a million dollars, which is about $2,500 a day under the court-endorsed mediation agreement. Many in the industry, including us, of course, will be watching closely to see whether that commitment is honoured by the due date.
Australia's Employment Statistics Overview
00:04:59
Speaker
Australia's unemployment rate remained at 4.1% in January, with the number of unemployed people dropping slightly from the previous month, according to the labour market update for January released last Thursday by the ABS. Full-time employment rose by 50,000 people and part-time employment dropped by 33,000.
00:05:18
Speaker
Tasmania reported the highest unemployment rate across Australia at 4.9%, with Western Australia 3.4% and South Australia 3.7%, recording the lowest. Total employment growth between January 2025 and January 2026 was just growth. That's a sharp slowdown of compared to the four hundred and ninety eight thousand jobs added or 3.5% growth in the previous year between January 2024 January
00:05:51
Speaker
PeopleIn Limited announced the departure of CEO Ross Thompson to an overseas role. Co-founder Tom Reardon will take over as CEO and managing director of PeopleIn effective from 17 April 2026.
00:06:05
Speaker
PeopleIn's chair Glenn Richards said Ross leaves PeopleIn with strengthened operational and financial resilience and a foundation from which to grow. he has built a strong executive team that can deliver on our growth strategy.
00:06:18
Speaker
We are grateful for Ross's service and his dedication to PeopleIn and wish him all the best for the next chapter in his career.
Leadership Change at PeopleIn: CEO Departure
00:06:25
Speaker
Tom Ridden founded AWX in 2000, which was acquired by the business that listed on the ASX in 2016 as PeopleInfrastructure and is now known as PeopleIn.
00:06:37
Speaker
The company's brands include AWX, Perigon Group and Halcyon Knights. ASX-listed Ignite reported 18% drop in revenue to $38 million dollars for the half-year period ended 31 December 2025. Gross profit decreased 17.7% and to Contractor numbers fell in the calendar year.
00:07:05
Speaker
The company closed its loss-making technology solutions business during the reporting period, incurring $300,000 in restructuring costs. Total internal headcount on the 31st of December last year was 33, down from 45 in the comparative period.
00:07:22
Speaker
ASX-listed training and labour hire firm Ashley Services reported revenue of $308 million for the six months to 31 December 2025, an increase of 15.8% on the prior year period.
00:07:34
Speaker
Labour hire revenue was up 16.1% due to contract wins in the supply chain and retail sectors and new projects secured in the construction sector in Victoria. Training revenue for the first half was up 3.8%, due mainly to increase public funding for rail-related courses.
Seek's Strategic Stake Sale in Employment Hero
00:07:50
Speaker
EBITDA was up 41%, and net profit after tax rose 88% to $3.4 million. Adele, on to Seek. Although it's Seek Investments we're talking about here, they've announced they're selling off their remaining stake in Employment Hero, wrapping up an eight-year relationship.
00:08:09
Speaker
Yes, they told the ASX it's just a natural step in the investment cycle and not a falling out. Seek's been backing Employment Hero since 2017 and went in on multiple funding rounds.
00:08:21
Speaker
If I remember rightly, they offloaded about $95 million dollars worth of shares to private equity last year. Yes, that is correct. And now the wrist seems like it's up for sale. But let's be honest, the relationship got awkward when Employment Hero's swag app started competing directly with Seek's job listings. Yes, it was a bit awkward. Things got legal, big dispute over API access.
00:08:43
Speaker
Employment Hero accused Seek of anti-competitive behaviour and then later dropped those claims. Seek, for its part, raised concerns with customers about how Employment Hero was allegedly using data and whether it was sticking to API terms, which Employment Hero denied during the court proceedings.
00:08:59
Speaker
So, strategically, it does seem to make sense for Seek. Yes, but it comes at a pretty tricky time, Ross. The Seek shares have been hammered. Investor frustration over results and doubts about growth prospects have sent the stock down about 25% in the last month alone.
00:09:16
Speaker
Well, watch this space. The next group has announced the appointment of Paul Bridgewater as interim director for Victoria. Bridgewater has held a range of senior leadership roles with agencies and industry vendors across the past two decades, including GM for Ethos Beef Chapman, Global Head of Partnerships and Alliances for Live Hire and GM Australia for Manpower.
00:09:40
Speaker
The announcement noted Bridgewater's role would be to strengthen client delivery and team growth across the Next Step and the Safe Step brands in the state. Director Lisa Hammond is stepping into a new role as Director of Client Partnerships and Executive Search, focusing on building stronger partnerships across Victoria.
00:09:58
Speaker
The next group specialises in ah HR recruitment and health, safety and environment recruitment.
Unemployment Rate vs. Job Market Reality
00:10:05
Speaker
And now you're up to date, stay tuned now for question of the week.
00:10:18
Speaker
Question of the week. Why is the unemployment rate lying? Whoa, that's a bit emotive, Adele. Where's all this coming from? This has been prompted from a LinkedIn post that I saw this week from Martin Rosenberg from Smart Recruitment, who posts the unemployment rate is steady at 4.1%, which has been reported, and we just reported that ourselves in the news But he says that based on his 28 years in recruitment and a strong gut feeling that this seems off, there's many more applications coming in than just the 4.1% or seems that there's many more people unemployed.
00:10:56
Speaker
What's missing, Ross? Ross? Well, he's both wrong and right. Well, there's the official unemployment rate that the ABS publishes, and there's what you might call the unofficial unemployment rate that Roy Morgan ah keeps us abreast of.
00:11:14
Speaker
Okay. Let's unpack this a bit further, though. Let's start with the official unemployment rate. Who calculates that and how is
ABS Unemployment Data Collection Methods
00:11:22
Speaker
it calculated? Okay. Okay, so the Australian Bureau of Statistics calculates a range of labour market indicators of which the unemployment rate is the major one. And they release a labour market update for the previous month on the third Thursday of each month. So we've just had the January labour market update that was released last Thursday.
00:11:45
Speaker
Okay, and is it done by survey? Is it done from recorded data? Where do they get the information from? Okay, so the collection method is households that are selected are interviewed each month for eight months in a row with one eighth of the sample being replaced each month. And information is obtained either by trained interviewers or through completing an online survey. Generally, the first interview is completed face-to-face. and then subsequent ones are conducted by phone.
00:12:18
Speaker
Okay. And is it a big sample of our population? It is typically about 24,000 dwellings every month, which equates to approximately 50,000 people that are surveyed. Okay. they're contacting people face-to-face or phone interviews and asking questions about those that are registered in the household for the survey, whether they're employed, um unemployed, looking for work, all of all of the things. Correct. Yes. Effectively, their labour their labour market status. And this is conducted for two weeks, ah typically between the ah first Sunday of the month
00:12:59
Speaker
And two weeks after that, so the first Sunday of the month, typically between about the 5th and the 11th. By the time the data is released, it could be up to about 40 days old, but it could be as recent as about 28 days old. Now, you mentioned a Roy Morgan survey, which has some different results, varying results to that.
00:13:21
Speaker
Tell me about how that survey is conducted.
Roy Morgan's Survey vs. ABS Data
00:13:23
Speaker
So, Roy Morgan, the polling organisation, every month release what they regard or they label as the real unemployment rate. So, last week, they released January 2026's real unemployment rate, which they posit at 11.2% or total That's more than double.
00:13:45
Speaker
ah Yes, absolutely. They say, in fact, real unemployment increased by 149,000 people and is now 1.82 million people.
00:13:59
Speaker
So how is that so much greater? I mean, are people lying to on the ABS survey? Who are these extra people? It, of course, is down to definitions, right?
00:14:11
Speaker
And that's the that's the critical thing. So let's look at the way they define it. So firstly, Roy Morgan asks the person simply a question, are you in paid employment? And if they're not, are you looking for paid work?
00:14:29
Speaker
It's as simple as that. And if the answer is yes, then the person is, by Roy Morgan's calculations, an unemployed person. Now that's different to the ABS. Because the ABS will classify a person as unemployed only they've been actively looking for a job in the four weeks up to the end of the reference week and if they were available for work. Also, a person is employed if when they were surveyed that they work for at least one hour or more during the reference week for pay, profit or commission of any kind. So clearly, by those two definitions, the number of unemployed actively looking for work, it's going to be a much smaller proportion of the population. And those that who are technically employed, it's it's going to be a much larger figure. Give me an example of some of the people that might not be counted in this. The people that the ABS regard as unemployed but not actively looking for work, in other words, not counted, as unemployed, are those people who have a barrier to looking for or starting for work. So typically someone who might be injured or is disabled or is ill or someone who is caring for a person. In other words, if they were offered a job that fitted their circumstances, they would say yes. But are they actively looking for a job in the week of the reference period?
00:16:01
Speaker
No. And so therefore, they're not counted as unemployed, but Roy Morgan would count them as unemployed. Where i think the difference is, is the third category of people. So the first category, those who are unemployed, actively looking for work.
00:16:17
Speaker
that the ABS captured, those that are unemployed and not actively looking for work as defined by the ABS, which are not counted as officially unemployed, but Roy Morgan does capture them. And the third category are those people that are actively looking for work.
00:16:34
Speaker
And those people would typically be ah in education as a student, So they're not counted as unemployed if they're in full-time
Immigration's Impact on Employment Post-COVID
00:16:44
Speaker
education. Those people that are in work or who are in whether part-time or full-time and actively applying for more hours, they're not regarded as unemployed. They'd be underemployed, but not unemployed. And so typically now many recruiters, depending upon the area, are experiencing a surge in applications. And this has been
00:17:06
Speaker
confirmed by SEEK who are reporting applications per job are at record highs. Because of immigration, and immigration at the moment is high relative to where it was immediately post-COVID, is that immigrants to Australia, whether short-term or long-term, if they're looking for work, typically they've got minimal or no local networks on the ground to find work. So they're applying for jobs that are visible. So in other words, jobs that are on job boards.
00:17:34
Speaker
Okay. So we had... low immigration or migration during COVID and we could only employ the people that were here. But what happened to the unemployment rate during that time?
00:17:46
Speaker
Well, it went up. It peaked at about 7.5% in, I think, July 2020 because the borders were shut and normally we're getting 15,000 to 20,000 new workers ah every month via immigration. And, of course, the tap was turned off and it stayed turned off for about 18 months.
00:18:06
Speaker
So we didn't have a lot of new people coming in, but we still had a higher unemployment rate, but that was because people were losing their jobs, right? Correct. Yes. We had whole industry shut down. Yes, correct. My question around what recruiters can do with this information, tell us about how valuable this is and how they can utilise this in their everyday.
00:18:23
Speaker
The way I've explained those differences might be helpful for recruiters to explain that to clients. because quantity does not equal quality. And also remembering the unemployment rate is a national unemployment rate for the whole workforce of 16 million people.
00:18:42
Speaker
And of course, that disguises very significant differences in geographic areas, in particular occupations, levels of occupations. You know it's the classic of the of a generalisation is useful as a generalisation, but it can hide many, many significant differences when you get down to specific labour markets.
Leveraging Unemployment Data for Recruitment
00:19:07
Speaker
So if recruiters are speaking to clients who are saying to them, we are getting lots of applications, how do recruiters pitch themselves for that? Simply that mass supply is creating much more work for employers and the way candidates are customising their resume with their favourite Gen AI tool is makes it harder to work out whether what you're seeing on paper or on your screen as a candidate resume represents the reality of that candidate. Whereas recruiters who've got strong relationships and don't rely on job board candidates are those that are much more likely to be able to produce qualified candidates that they know can do the job or they can accurately represent those candidates' capabilities to the client. And that's going to save the client time.
00:19:56
Speaker
Okay, so the unemployment rate isn't necessarily lying. That might have been too strong a word, but there's some hidden information in in there that could be very valuable for recruiters. That's right. It is important to understand the difference between what the ABS regards as someone who's officially unemployed and the way someone may regard themselves in terms of their employment status, and then also how actively they're looking for work, whether they're unemployed or
Future of Work: Recruitment Training Insights
00:20:23
Speaker
employed.
00:20:23
Speaker
And to close off today's podcast, tell us what's happening with you at the moment, Ross. Pretty active at the moment, Adele. All three of my public programs are available. The Rookie Recruiter Training Program starts today, 24th of February, and a recording is available for anyone who's going to register after today. I've got my Advanced Recruiter Program starting in the middle of March and then the next season of Leadership Coaching for High Performance, which is for team leaders and agency owners of small businesses. That's starting at the end of April. And finally, my keynotes, and this is one that A number of you would have seen the future of work in the age of AI. That is great, even if I say so myself, a great option for an internal session for your recruitment agency or also a client or candidate event. I know there has been outstanding feedback on that keynote, Ross. So if you haven't heard Ross, or even if you have heard that that presentation, because he updates it every time he delivers it, I've heard it several times and I still learn something new every time I listen to it.
00:21:30
Speaker
Thanks, Adel. And for all my programs, go rossclennett.com.