Youth labour market continues to deteriorate

Advertisement

By Leith van Onselen

Yesterday’s ABS labour force release for August revealed a further deterioration in trend unemployment for those aged 15 to 24 years old, with unemployment rising for the seventh consecutive month to 13.05%, versus 4.2% unemployment for the rest of the labour market (see next chart).

ScreenHunter_14946 Sep. 15 19.53

As you can see in the next chart, total employment growth for those aged 15-24 years of age had been more or less negative since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), whilst the rest of the labour force has experienced positive growth. However, from December 2014 employment growth turned positive, although it has deteriorated sharply recently (see next chart).

ScreenHunter_14945 Sep. 15 19.53
Advertisement

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:
Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe
About the author
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness. Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.