All of these things are true (well, not the decrease time for upskilling/employment searches. Somewhere between a quarter and two thirds of people are doing neither of those things, depending on the country). But they're still better than the status quo. It's very, very difficult to move low-skill and long-term unemployed labour into long-term, well-paid employment. There's no silver bullet solution, only years of education, low-paid/casual work with low job security and setbacks.
I agree, trade adjustment legislation would be good. I'd like to see the Turnbull government introduce it, especially as it would be a bone he could throw to the soft anti-globalisation peeps.
I personally think all these solutions are really just fiddling around the edges of the real problem, which is that our current system is both over-regulated and that our minimum wage is too high. While the government is working on the first to minor success, the second is political suicide to attempt to overcome. We're stuck trying to distort the market to fight against the distortions our incredibly high minimum wage provides in the first place (I think MW's are good, but ours is too high, especially as a federal minimum wage).
The neo-liberal model is an unbridled success everywhere it is tried (as we are testament too). We should be pushing towards Singapore if at all possible (especially in healthcare/unemployment benefits, which would solve the above problems and reduce all that government spending we dislike).
