In an election focused on 'jobs and growth' both major parties have addressed youth unemployment. But the proposals of neither party will meet adequately the needs of the most severely disadvantaged young jobseekers. They ignore the human reality.
Youth unemployment is now at its highest peak since the late 1990s. The average number of young people unemployed across the country at any given time is 282,000, and over 15 per cent of people aged 15 to 24 are looking for full time work.
In its May Budget the Coalition introduced the Youth Jobs PaTH (Prepare, Trial, Hire) initiative. It aims to assist up to 120,000 young jobseekers (aged 25 and below) in skills training and will support them in voluntary internships of up to 12 weeks. Job seekers will receive a modest payment in addition to existing Centrelink benefits. Employers will receive incentives of up to $10,000 to employ eligible jobseekers after the internship.
Within days of its announcement welfare sector representatives criticised the program. and employment law experts also claimed that the proposed program would breach current minimum wage standards and might allow interns to sue for recovery of unpaid wages.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten has promised to introduce an apprenticeship quota in the party's priority infrastructure projects. He says that this policy would create 2600 apprenticeship places in the short-term and tens of thousands over coming years.
He has also promised an initiative which will allow 20,000 young people to access six weeks of training followed by six weeks of work at award wages. The government would pay participants' wages, a significantly higher sum than Youth Allowance or Newstart payments.
The initiatives promised by both parties recognise that hands-on opportunities that teach both the basic skills needed to maintain a job and also the ability to follow directions, work as part of a team and adhere to a routine are the best way to help young people move into work. They may serve well many young people.
But in one respect the schemes of both major parties are fatally flawed. Both offer 'one size fits all' approaches to addressing youth unemployment. This ignores the huge difference in experiences — and employability — between a young person who has completed high school and lives at home in a supportive environment, and a young person who is not fortunate enough to have either of those things and has experienced multiple and complex hardship during their lives.
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