What are the barriers to work for young people?
The Foundation for Young Australians recently released their latest report, The New Work Reality, which detailed the various troubles facing 20-somethings trying to transition into the full-time workforce. This is a serious issue in 2018, with 31 per cent of young people in Australia either unemployed or underemployed.
This comes at a great cost to the nation’s economy (790 million hours of lost work and $15.9 billion in lost GDP), especially when you throw in the $7.2 billion annually that goes towards combatting mental health issues, which has a significant correlation with youth unemployment.
The report identified four key barriers to work for young people:
Not enough work experience
Despite a wide variety of options available to students, such as internships and university programs like Industry Based Learning (IBL) and Work Integrated Learning (WIL), an alarming 75 per cent of young people don’t “believe they possess the relevant vocational and practical work experience to gain full-time work.”
Lack of appropriate education
Half of young people don’t consider themselves to have the appropriate technical skillset to attain a full-time job. This is a surprising revelation, especially considering recent census data showed Australians with tertiary qualifications outnumber those without.
Lack of career management skills
Interviewing for a job has never been seen as an easy thing to do and this is reflected by just one in four young people thinking they have the right interview and application skills to obtain a full-time role.
Not enough jobs
It’s not hard to see why young people feel unsure about their future job prospects given the heavy media attention surrounding topics like automation and downsizing. In fact, seven out of 10 young people deem a lack of job availability as a barrier to full-time work.
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