Youth Unemployment And Unemployment

Having a university qualification is more important than ever, but it has never provided less of a guarantee against job insecurity or even unemployment. Recent research into the Australian labour market has shown that holding a university degree is far from a guarantee of employment in a job that actually requires a university education. Various authors have estimated that anywhere from 20% to 45% of male university graduates and 17% to 38% of female university graduates are under-utilised in the Australian labour market with regard to their level of education-specific human capital, insofar that their levels of education exceed the requisite levels required to perform their jobs. These studies, along with a body of similar research conducted

Indeed, youth labour market conditions deteriorated significantly at the onset of the Global Financial Crisis in September 2008 and have struggled to recover since. From February 2014 to February 2015, the level of youth employment decreased by 0.9%, while the level of youth unemployment increased by 13.3%. Against this backdrop, the youth unemployment rate has also risen, from 12.4% in February 2014 to 13.9% in February 2015. Youth accounted for 29.8% of the long-term unemployment pool in February 2015, well above the 22.6% recorded in September 2008.

This has lead to many more Young people increasing their participation in education and studying longer if they have been unable to secure employment in a difficult economic climate, in an attempt to improve their job prospects for the future when labour market conditions eventually improve. To illustrate, youth participation in full-time education has risen from 47.2% in September 2008 to 51.8% in February 2015, the equal highest rate on record. Having a university qualification is more important than ever, but it has never provided less of a guarantee against job

Among the reasons for this is Australian companies’ access to funding which, while not as easy as the US for example, is still ranked fifth within the G20 countries. The country comes second in education and training, and half of those surveyed by EY said they saw an improvement over the last year in entrepreneurspecific courses at universities and business schools. With regard to tax and regulation aimed at encouraging entrepreneurialism, Australia comes eighth, and 15th on co-ordinated support. The report shows that it takes only two days to set up a business in Australia, against a G20 average of 22 days. However, there are still improvements to be made. 69 per cent think students need access to specific training to become entrepreneurs, a reversal in sentiment from 2011, when 64 per cent said they didn’t think training was required. And as the investment in mining wanes in Australia, successful entrepreneurial businesses will be more important than ever for future job creation and the sustainability of the Australian