Photo: Clay Haskell (Flickr).
Not-for-profit groups have warned that youth unemployment figures are increasing at an alarming rate.
Thousands of young Victorians are finding themselves caught in a web of unemployment, and the situation has become increasingly alarming in disadvantaged suburbs of Greater Melbourne and rural areas.
Warrnambool and south-western suburbs, Geelong, Melbourne’s North-West and Hume have been hardest hit by the rates, where work for 15 to 24-year-olds is difficult to find.
Brotherhood of St Laurence executive director Tony Nicholson said the impact of these figures on youths can be long-term.
“We know that the damaging impact on these young people, including a lack of sense of self-worth, is likely to continue for years to come. Unemployment early in the working years of a young person often limits chances for work and earnings well into adult life.
“Policy makers have been sitting on their hands for decades and failed to recognise that the support for young people is not keeping pace with the changes to our economy,” he said.
The average Victorian youth unemployment for the year to July 2014 was 13.8 per cent, up from 12.3 per cent from the same period a year earlier. These figures place Victoria as the third worst Australian state for youth unemployment after Tasmania and South Australia.
Analysis provided by the Brotherhood of St Laurence, based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data, found that in Warrnambool and the South West region, 18 per cent of young people under 24 are unable to find work, up from 14.2 per cent.
Victorian Council of Social Service chief executive Emma King believes that Australia is at risk of losing an entire cohort of young people to poverty, vulnerability, disadvantage and negativity.
“Many young Victorians are unsuccessfully applying for hundreds of jobs, and are being rejected because they are told they do not have enough experience,” she said.
“There are young people who may have little or no work experience and they’re now in a job market where they are competing with others who have more experience. That’s really tough, and for young people who are trying to get their first foot hold into the workforce, it’s really difficult out there.”
The peak welfare organization called for a “comprehensive workforce participation plan” that involves the coming together of community, business and government to reorient the economic development towards employment-intensive growth.
Nicholson said more manpower is needed as the Victorian economy continues to shift to a mainly knowledge and service base.
“As the population greys, we cannot afford to have large numbers of our youth without the personal capacities to take part in the mainstream economic and social life of the state,” he said.
