ONE in six Canberra teenagers who drop out of education are unemployed and an economist has warned of a hard core of jobless youth who will struggle to get jobs for the rest of their lives.
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Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released this week show the ACT's unemployment figure for those aged 15 to 19 was 16.8 per cent, more than three times the rate of the general population.
University of Canberra economist Phil Lewis said the figures point to a small number of young people facing the threat of long-term unemployment, which will hugely affect their quality of life.
''All the evidence points to the fact that the biggest indicator of success in your lifetime will be when you leave school,'' Professor Lewis said.
People unemployed for long periods - meaning they are out of work for a year or more - are at a greater risk of poverty and miss out on vital social networks or even become socially excluded.
But this is not the greatest damage. The long-term unemployed tend to stay out of work because they have lost confidence or motivation or due to perceptions about their employability.
A total of 9.4 per cent of people outside education aged 20 to 24 in the ACT were also without work, pointing to the difficulty some were facing as they moved to work from school and higher education.
Lincoln Crawley, managing director in Australia and New Zealand for Manpower Group, said fewer employers were hiring staff who had qualifications but no experience.
Mr Crawley also said it was risky for businesses to think only in the short term, rather than investing in skills.
He said more government funding should be directed to study the problem of youth unemployment and, in particular, gathering more in-depth statistics about it.
''We already know it's a massive problem,'' he said.
''The fear of many organisations is that Generation Y is not going to stay with them, so why should they invest in them.''
A recent report by Manpower called for a more positive image to be put forward of vocational training, and Mr Crawley said signing up to generalist university degrees should not be the default position for youngsters.
Environmental science student Tamika Flanigan, on the other hand, said she chose a more broad-ranging degree in the belief it would increase her chances of getting a job.
The 18-year-old said others who had studied something more specific, such as zoology, had struggled to find jobs after graduating.
University of Canberra students looking for work are being encouraged by their students association to do voluntary work to help them break into the workforce.
