From a member of SPA, posted to the SPA members Group Popforum,
I’ve just been checking the latest edition of the the ABS Labour Force Statistics (March 2010). As you probably know the overall unemployment rate is 5.3%, but for young people aged 15-19 it’s 18.2%, up from 14.6% in March 2007.
If this were just students who were looking for part time work it might not be so disgraceful but the overall picture is this.
There were 434,400 people aged 15-19 in Australia in March 2010.
Of these 64,300 were not in full time education and they were looking for work, ie they were officially unemployed and not studying (or at least not studying full time).
A further 59,700 were neither in full time education nor were they looking for work (so they don’t show up as unemployed).
This means that overall there were 124,000 15 to 19 year olds who were not working (either full time or part time) and not in full time education, that is 28.5% of the whole age group.
See ABS, Labour Force March 2010, Catalogue no. 6202.0, ABS, Canberra, 2010, p. 21 (This can be downloaded from http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6202.0Mar%202010?OpenDocument )
Yet we overlook them and say we have a labour shortage and lament the lack of local skills.