Despite a range of State Government initiatives, and despite record economic activity during the past decade, Aboriginal workforce participation in Western Australia continues to languish. By a range of measures, Aboriginal people are significantly 
under-represented in the State’s overall workforce. No progress has been achieved yet in Western Australia on the national target of halving the gap in employment outcomes between Aboriginal and 
non-Aboriginal Australians by 2018.

The situation is much worse in regional areas, due to a range of factors including the structure of local job markets, local housing markets, education and training participation rates, and underlying and entrenched disadvantage. Aboriginal workforce participation only gets worse with remoteness, reflecting the low levels of private sector economic activity in remote areas.

The urgency is growing in regional areas because the Aboriginal youth population continues to increase at a rate nearly double that of the non-Aboriginal population, and the Aboriginal youth unemployment rate is significantly higher than the rate for  
non-Aboriginal youth.

As an initial response to these challenges, the State Government will strengthen existing whole- of-government policies and practices to boost Aboriginal employment in the public sector through a focus on:

• regionally-defined targets (e.g. regions in which Aboriginal people make up a higher percentage of the workforce should have higher targets)
• agency engagement and performance (including through new mandatory provisions)
• greater regional coordination to develop and supply the Aboriginal workforce
• stronger accountability for results.

In doing so, the State Government will seek to provide more jobs directly for Aboriginal people in its regional workforce, and indirectly provide jobs for Aboriginal people through requirements for Aboriginal employment in its regional contracting and procurement.

Beyond these measures, and in the longer-term, the State Government will seek to:

• foster regional economic growth and jobs, consistent with the Kimberley and Pilbara Regional Investment Blueprints
• work with the Commonwealth Government through its Community Development Program to connect jobseekers with jobs, build jobseeker capability, and enforce job-seeking requirements.