At Clothing the Gaps in Melbourne's inner north, Bundjalung woman Ebony Popple is excited to come to work in an environment where she can be her authentic self.
Across the two stores, more than 90 per cent of the staff are First Nations people, an almost unheard of ratio for most workplaces.
"It's just the best," she said.
"It's so nice to wake up and to have your culture celebrated each and every single day.
"To feel culturally safe, to be able to celebrate alongside all the mob is so amazing and important to me."
Not all of her workplaces have been so welcoming and, like most Indigenous workers, she's experienced her fair share of racism.
"I have experienced racism before at work, both in old workplaces and also at my new workspace, although I find that that's just the way that things are unfortunately," she said.
"Living in the colony, racism is everywhere."
She said there was a stark difference between how Clothing the Gaps dealt with incidents compared to other workplaces.
"The thing that has made a huge difference with working in a Blak business is the way that it's handled," she said.
"I feel a great sense of support from my staff and also my bosses if I was ever to report something that's happened."
Racism, exclusion, and identity strain are all factors that contribute to high levels of Indigenous unemployment and, ahead of the jobs and skills summit, advocates want the government to look at a national overhaul.
Indigenous people disadvantaged in the workplace
The reasons behind high rates of Indigenous unemployment are complex but often come back to access to education, opportunity, trauma and ultimately racism.
Data around Indigenous experiences at work paint a shocking picture, with one report by the Jumbunna Institute showing more than a quarter of respondents work in culturally unsafe spaces, and nearly half heard racial slurs at work.
Those experiences often force Indigenous workers out of the job market and compound intergenerational trauma.
Eora descendant Nareen Young, one of the researchers on the Gari Yala report, said it was clear most Indigenous people experienced racial bias due to their culture.
"Most Indigenous people are disadvantaged in the employment and labour market because of workplace racism," Professor Young said.
"There is a lot of overt racism, that kind of, 'you only got this job because you're Indigenous' type stuff, or 'you don't look Indigenous'.
"The covert stuff is just as important.
"Our survey, Gari Yala, reports lots and lots of different forms of racism, cultural load, identity strain, and we know that Indigenous people experience that in the workplace."
Next week at the highly anticipated Jobs and Skills summit, the federal government will unveil its new policy to replace the heavily criticised Community Development Program.
The policy was essentially a work-for-the-dole scheme for people in remote parts of the country but was found to be exploiting and disadvantaging Indigenous participants.
Advocates are pleased the policy is being scrapped but want new policies to look at ways to lift employment nationally.
Professor Young said government policy was important in addressing the issue, but industry also must take action to address the problem.
"It's a necessary and intractable thing for government to deal with because it is a policy issue," she said.
"It's up to us in the broader sector to do our own thing. We obviously want to be about Indigenous led employment policy, across business industry, that community sector, wherever Indigenous people work is the same as where everyone else works."
Aspirational pathways not encouraged for Indigenous jobseekers
For those people navigating the job market, getting into paid work can be difficult and mainstream service providers often have a poor understanding of the barriers Indigenous people face.
Distrust of government organisations is common in Indigenous communities and things like birth certificates or drivers licenses, which have become common requirements for job applications, aren't always accessible.
Indigenous Employment Partners (IEP) operations manager and Gunai Kurnai woman Donna Gleisner said Indigenous people were rarely encouraged to pursue aspirational pathways in the mainstream system.
"There's a lot of 'just get a job', there's not 'what's your career path' or 'what do you really want to do' or 'what gets you out of bed in the morning'," she said.
"It's just 'we just need to give this person a job', and just throwing them into a lot of times unstable employment."
Ms Gleisner said certain pathways could also be re-traumatising for some workers.
"I remember speaking to one candidate, we couldn't understand why they wouldn't take up these job offers that we were giving them — it was along the lines of that we were looking for cleaning positions and things for them," she said.
"Then we find out that their grandmother had been basically a household servant or a slave.
"So, when you go or be a cleaner, they just go I'm not doing that, because the stories that they've had handed down to them."
IEP takes a "wraparound" approach, supporting jobseekers on the pathway from interview to employment and helping them stay in their roles, or advance within a company.
Workplaces are also vetted to ensure employees are going to culturally safe, responsible places where Indigenous employees can thrive.
"We can feel like you're just ticking a box, you're just trying to meet your procurement target, and you're not really interested in learning about what you need to do," Ms Gleisner said.
"So, we also can go, 'I don't think you're the right fit for us', so we don't think that we're going to place any of our people with you."
Wolithika man Kyle Atkinson was a client at the service not long ago, but he's now been recruited to mentor other Indigenous people looking to find work.
"That's just the kind of work that I wanted to do, was help mob and just get mob back on track," he said.
"I'll just try and keep them motivated and busy and, you know, just jumping through the hurdles I need to get to employment."
He can also share his experiences with jobseekers and help them navigate what can be a daunting process.
"I've been through it all. It's just having someone to walk alongside them and coach them through the next steps from someone who's been through it," Mr Atkinson said.
