Jigsaw is excited to announce that we have been chosen as an Inclusive Employment Australia provider – the new program that will replace the Department for Social Services’ existing Disability Employment Services (DES) from November.
After a competitive tender process, Jigsaw was selected to provide services to a specialist cohort of people with disability aged 25 and under in the Canberra/Queanbeyan area. We’ll be operating Inclusive Employment Australia services from Jigsaw’s hub in Dickson – for both eligible existing participants, and brand new IEA participants.
Being an Inclusive Employment Australia provider means that Jigsaw has the opportunity to:
- Support more people with disability to build their skills, confidence and work-readiness, and secure the lasting, stable career outcome they deserve. Initially, we will just be a provider in Canberra, but we hope to tender successfully for all Jigsaw locations (Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney) in future years.
- Access government funding to ensure the support we provide is sustainable.
- Contribute to the ongoing development of the disability employment landscape in Australia, and help shape it for the better.
More than a rebrand, we believe in the new Inclusive Employment Australia’s potential for real progress
Jigsaw has long campaigned for DES reform. Many people in our community have experienced the common pitfalls of DES: they were placed into a job before they were ready; the job didn’t match their skills or interests; they didn’t receive the support they needed to succeed in the long term.
We know that Jigsaw’s “prepare for work, through work” model leads to better outcomes: according to a 2025 independent evaluation of Jigsaw by Flinders University, 63.3% of Jigsaw’s placements into mainstream employment (excluding short-term contracts and internships) had been sustained for at least 12 months. This is more than double the 12-month outcome rate of a typical DES.
The new Inclusive Employment Australia is a significant redesign of the DES system. Positive changes include:
- Support for a wide variety of specialist cohort providers with deep experience in tailoring their service. Jigsaw’s proven “prepare for work, through work” model is designed for school leavers, and people who have little to no previous work experience. As a specialist provider for people aged 25 and under, we get to focus on what we do best.
- Better funding for work preparation. The DES system was heavily biased towards job-placements. Providers were paid outcomes fees for placing people into jobs, and penalised for not placing people into jobs quickly enough. This incentivised DES providers to place people into jobs even if the person wasn’t ready. The new Inclusive Employment Australia still has outcome fees, but these are much better balanced with funding to support the ongoing skill development and career goals of the individual. This change incentivises providers to ensure someone is well-prepared and confident, and placed into a job that will be meaningful to them.
- Increase in ongoing support for people with disability to maintain their employment. Alongside work preparation activities, there is now much better funding available to provide long-term support post-placement. This means that people with disability who secure a job can receive support in their new job for as long as they need and want it.
Encouraged by these changes, Jigsaw chose to apply to be a provider. As a provider, we can access government funding and additional tools to support more of our community into jobs, whilst protecting our sector-leading retention rate that is so important for people with disability to build their futures in work.
Why Inclusive Employment Australia is good for the Jigsaw community in Canberra
- More job opportunities through Jigsaw Connect. As an IEA provider, we will have a range of tools to engage employers that we couldn’t previously access. This will strengthen Jigsaw Connect, leading to more job opportunities with more employers for trainees and paid trainees, as well as for new participants joining Jigsaw for the first time through IEA.
- An alternative to NDIS for people who don’t have funding. With the NDIS under reform, many members of our community are experiencing lengthy delays and insufficient funding packages. By enrolling in IEA services with us, people with disability who do not have NDIS funding, or who have reduced funding, can still be part of Jigsaw (subject to eligibility criteria).
And if we’re wrong about the new IEA?
We understand a new system is unlikely to solve all the challenges of the previous DES overnight. We are committed to documenting the positives and the negatives as we encounter them, and communicating these openly and frequently to influence the ongoing development of IEA. This includes talking to the Department for Social Services, Government Ministers and MPs, disability and employment sector peak bodies, other social enterprises and employment providers and the Centre for Inclusive Employment (a centre to encourage best practice and knowledge-sharing). We hope to extend the learnings from providing Inclusive Employment Australia services in Canberra to all Jigsaw hubs in future years.
We’re excited to be part of Inclusive Employment Australia. It’s a new chapter for Jigsaw, and for people with disability targeting mainstream employment in Australia.
Back in 2014, Jigsaw was founded on a simple vision: an Australia where people with disability are fully included in the workforce. We believe that Inclusive Employment Australia, and Jigsaw’s role within it, brings us one step closer to making it reality.