Department of Social Services – Disability Employment Services (DES)

Monthly (reported annually)

July 2025 (2024–25)

Disability Employment Services (DES) help people with disability find work and keep a job. The Department of Social Services uses administrative data from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations Employment Business Intelligence Warehouse.

Through DES, people with disability, injury or health condition may be able to receive assistance to prepare for, find and keep a job.

Providers of Disability Employment Services are called DES providers. DES providers are a mix of large, medium and small, for-profit and not-for-profit organisations that are experienced in supporting people with disability as well as providing assistance to employers to put in place practices that support the employee in the workplace.

From 1 July 2025, a new specialist disability employment program will be rolled out to support people with disability to prepare for, find and maintain employment. This will replace the current DES program. Because of this, 2024–25 will be the last year DES can be used for this measure.

Disability, injury or health condition is normally determined by an Employment Services Assessment based on available certified medical evidence.

Primary disability group is derived from a jobseeker's reported disadvantage where it is a medical condition, and from the primary permanent medical condition reported in their Employment Services Assessment or Job Capacity Assessment conducted by Services Australia.

Age refers to the age of the participant as at the claim creation date.

‘Male’ and ‘Female’ reported. Categories are mutually exclusive.

Indigenous status is voluntarily self-reported in the Job Seeker Classification Instrument (JSCI).⁵ The term ‘First Nations people’ is used to refer to people who have identified on the JSCI as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.

Culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) cohort is based on the participant’s country of birth being a predominantly non-English speaking country.

The DES program offers services only to non-remote areas of Australia across 111 Employment Services Areas (ESAs). Data source does not cover remote areas and discrete Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

National, state and territory data are available.

• Disability Employment Services

1. Data are not a count of distinct participants, but the count of valid claims created regarding a participant. Claims are counted for a period by the date that the claim was created. However, multiple claims could be created for the same participant for different job placements in that period.
2. Full outcome claims for employment are outcomes claimed by eligible DES providers for employment where the hours worked each week for the DES participant was at or above their estimated employment benchmark on average.
3. 52-week employment outcomes were only claimable for contracts established under the Disability Employment Services (DES) Grant Agreement following the 2018 DES reforms on 1 July 2018. Hence, 52-week Employment Outcomes could only be claimed 52 weeks after the participant had commenced placement with a DES provider contract established from 1 July 2018 (i.e. 1 July 2019 onwards).
4. Claims data are for people aged 15 or over.

Additional data source links: DES Grant Agreement