Page 3911 - Week 12 - Thursday, 23 November 2006
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unemployment, underemployment and low-skilled entry level employment and their relationship with poverty. The government is due to report to the Assembly in December and I look forward to seeing the results of its analysis.
I was reminded this morning to look forward to this report when listening to an ABC Radio National interview with Mission Australia about a three-year report regarding youth unemployment and participation in the labour force. The report found that the employment, education and social pathways of young people have changed enormously over the last 20 years. Young people now face a complex landscape due to a breakdown in the predictable pathways and secure foundations of the past. Attempts to respond to these changes have largely tinkered with a system established to meet the needs of the 1970s and 1980s, based on assumptions of a linear pathway from childhood to adulthood.
The report also found that in Australia, despite our record low unemployment rates, young people aged between 15 and 24 comprise 19 per cent of the labour force aged 15 to 64 but make up 40 per cent of the unemployed. This rate is virtually equal to that experienced at the height of the 1992 recession. Times have not got better for this portion of society. There are 160,000 people under the age of 25 who are not in the labour force, are not registered as unemployed and are not engaged in education. These 160,000 young people do not receive Newstart, the youth allowance, a parenting payment or a disability pension. That is surprising and alarming, given the current skills shortage and the fact that all governments are marketing their cities and workplaces to overseas workers in the hope of increasing the level of skilled migrants in Australia.
The factors found to contribute to this lack of participation or long-term unemployment for young people are poor educational outcomes; poor health, both physical and mental, noting that three-quarters of mental illnesses begin between the ages of 15 and 25; and lack of family support, location, housing and finances. The disappearance of low-skilled entry level jobs from the market also compounds this problem. If you look at the public service, ASO or APS 1s and 2s have virtually become extinct and APS 3s are a threatened species.
The Mission Australia report found that government programs aimed at increasing the labour force participation rate among young people often only deal with the workplace. Successful non-government programs, however, deal with this issue by taking a comprehensive approach so as to consider a young person’s housing, family support, education and health, aspirations, self-esteem and self-confidence. Their responses are flexible and meet the multiple needs of young people.
There are currently three programs available in the ACT to young people facing difficulties with employment and participation. YARDS, facilitated by the CIT, provides marginalised young people with individual support as they prepare for and enter vocational or educational placements. The school-based new apprenticeship program involves employment of a young person who is undertaking a traineeship part time while still at school. Finally, the training pathway guarantee provides training for school leavers who have missed out on other training opportunities.
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