IT’S AN oft-heard lament from our young unemployed – how do you get experience when no one will give you a job?
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Crystallised in that one question is the “chicken and egg” dilemma for a growing army of local young people.
This month, it was announced youth unemployment was at its worst level in almost two decades.
It’s a looming national crisis, stripping confidence and hope from jobseekers and escalating the risk of social unrest.
Youth unemployment now stands at 14.2 per cent, even higher in regional areas like ours and dramatically higher in the Indigenous community.
Under-employment and non-participation obfuscate further the real depth of the problem.
The job landscape at the other end of life is almost as barren.
Over-55s are confronted with the opposite excuse when looking for work – “you have too much experience”. But the end result is the same – jobs are rarer than white rhinos.
Workers aged between 30 and 45 are in the employment “golden years”.
Everyone else is justifiably jittery.
Amid such job market uncertainty, we should expect the federal government to calibrate a system that has both safety nets and incentives in equal measure.
But, according to local leaders in the jobs sector, the government has irrefutably failed.
As of July 1, thousands of unemployed under-30s will be forced off the dole every six months.
The tough-love approach to welfare might play well with conservative voters and will no doubt encourage some “bludgers” to look more actively for work.
But its base assumption, that the majority of young jobseekers aren’t looking hard enough for work, is wrong.
We should not be naive as to suggest there isn’t widespread rorting in our welfare system.
We should also not be so hard-hearted to suggest plunging jobseekers into third-world poverty will fix it.
The best way to have more young people in gainful employment is to put them in front of employers and give them an opportunity prove themselves.
Work for the Dole and incentives for employers taking on trainees are a good start, but more needs to be done.