Government hands Big Issue magazine $1.2m to create jobs for women

Tim Burrowes

March 25, 2010 1:10

The Big Issue magazine is launching a subscription service to grow copy sales and provide new jobs for disadvantaged women. The $1.2m initiative is being funded by the government.

The Big Issue’s Women’s Subscriptions Enterprise will initially employ 90 disadvantaged women and six professional staff across Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide.

Subscription sales will be overseen by professional telemarketers, with the 90 women working as dispatch assistants – collating, sorting and inserting the magazines every fortnight.

The Big Issue is currently sold to vendors, predominantly disadvantaged men, who buy the magazine at a cost of $2.50 each, which they then sell on the streets for $5.

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Tim Burrowes

Tim Burrowes is the publisher of Mumbrella and Unmade. He co-founded Mumbrella in 2008 and sister title Unmade in 2021. He's worked in the UK, Middle East, Asia & Australia and has specialised in writing about the communications world for the last 25 years. He wrote the book Media Unmade, published in 2021, and became the presenter of MediaLand on ABC Radio National in 2025.

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1 COMMENTS

BarbW 26 Mar 10

I’m a big fan of The Big Issue, but am curious about this move. Hiring 90 women sounds great – but to do the “collating, sorting and inserting magazines” – overseen by “professional telemarketers”? Hopefully there’s a training scheme to help these women move beyond the sheltered workshop approach….

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