24 October 2017

The Fair Work Ombudsman’s annual report for the 2016/17 financial year has been tabled in the Commonwealth Parliament.

The annual report shows that people are more interested than ever in knowing their workplace rights and obligations, with the Fair Work Ombudsman recording a 25 per cent increase in the number of new online My Account registrations compared to the previous financial year and visits to the website, www.fairwork.gov.au increasing by 7 per cent to a total of 16,328,246.

In the 2016/17 financial year, the Fair Work Ombudsman resolved nearly 27,000 requests for assistance involving a workplace dispute, a 9 per cent increase on the 2015/16 financial year.

The Fair Work Ombudsman’s focus on early intervention by providing employees and employers with tailored education and dispute resolution services has seen the average time taken to resolve a request for assistance involving a workplace dispute reduce to 15 days, as compared with 19 days in 2015/16.

The 2016/2017 financial year also saw the agency better targeting its compliance activities to focus on businesses, brands and sectors of the labour-market where analysis and intelligence gathering activities indicate serious and systemic non-compliance may exist.

The increased sophistication of the Fair Work Ombudsman’s intelligence-led approach has contributed to a  12 per cent increase in the total number of enforcement tools used by the agency with a total of $30.6 million recovered for more than 17,000 employees.

View the 2016/17 Fair Work Ombudsman Annual Report.

Follow Fair Work Ombudsman Natalie James on Twitter @NatJamesFWO , the Fair Work Ombudsman @fairwork_gov_au or find us on Facebook www.facebook.com/fairwork.gov.au .

Sign up to receive the Fair Work Ombudsman’s media releases direct to your email inbox at www.fairwork.gov.au/mediareleases.

Media inquiries:

Mark Lee, Director of Media,
Mobile: 0408 547 381
mark.lee@fwo.gov.au