Yesterday’s soft labour force data for February revealed even more bad news for Australia’s youth, with unemployment for those aged 15 to 24 years old continuing to trend up to 13.9% – the highest youth unemployment rate since September 1998 – versus only 4.7% for the rest of the labour market (see next chart).
As you can see in the next chart, total employment growth for those aged 15-24 years of age has been more or less negative since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), whilst the rest of the labour force has experienced positive growth (see next chart).
Moreover, full-time jobs have been hit particularly hard since the GFC, partly offset by part-time jobs growth (see next chart).
The only mildly positive result to come from the February labour force release is that youth labour force participation has continued to recover following the collapse in the wake of the GFC. Nevertheless, there remains substantial hidden youth unemployment (see next chart).
Youth underemployment, which captures those employed part-time that would like more work, also increased to highest level on record in February, coming it at 17.4% for 15 to 24 year-olds compared with 8.7% for the labour market as a whole (see next chart).
Moreover, when the number of unemployed and underemployed youth are added together, underutilisation amongst Australia’s 15 to 24 year-olds is a whopping 32.0% – the highest level on record, even beating the early-1990s recession (see next chart).
Finally, since the GFC, overall youth employment has fallen by 5.8% in trend terms, despite the strong lift in the population over this time, with full-time jobs down an incredible 18.5%. By contrast, the overall number of jobs for the rest of the labour force has risen by 11.1%, with full-time employment up 7.9% (see below table).
This data, once again, highlights the egregiousness of the Abbott Government’s attempt to deny under-30s access to unemployment benefits for six months, along with its Work-for-the-Dole program and open-slather approach to foreign worker visas.
Australia’s youth are crying out for political representation and a fair go. Is this too much to ask?
