If Australia wants to tackle its youth unemployment problem, it should focus on providing young people with career advice while they are still at school, an international expert on the prevention of youth unemployment says.
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Anthony Mann, research director at the Education and Employers Taskforce charity in Britain, says young people who have three or more career contacts – such as career talks or work experience – during their schooling are up to 20 per cent less likely to be disengaged from work, training or study later in life. He also found that those who have multiple career contacts earn 18 per cent more than their peers in their 20s.
Dr Mann, who is visiting Australia to talk to schools, employers and policy makers, said young people usually start with a very narrow idea of what a career can be, based only on what their family members do. "The more they encounter real people in real workplaces, the more they've got access to information they feel they can really trust," he said.
Dr Mann said career advice can begin as early as primary school, to allow young people to "explore" careers and show them why subjects such as maths, English and IT are "relevant elsewhere, outside of the classroom".
"As they get older, things should be more intensive [providing] something to put on their CV."
This comes as the latest unemployment figures on Thursday again showed that youth unemployment was at its highest rate since 2001. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the trend unemployment rate for Australians between 15 and 24 years old was 13.8 per cent in August.
It also comes as the federal government continues its push to ensure that young Australians are "earning or learning," with punitive measures such as a proposed six-month wait for Newstart for those under 30, which is yet to pass Parliament.
The Smith Family, which is one of nine organisations who have brought Dr Mann to Australia, is calling for a national program to bring schools, employers and the community together to help young people into jobs or training after school.
It is concerned there is nothing to replace the federal government's Partnership Brokers program, which put "brokers" on the ground to facilitate contact between local business, community agencies and students. Funding for the program, begun under Labor, was not extended in the government's first budget and will run out in December.
"We can't claim to be serious about addressing the blight of youth unemployment if we don't have a plan for investing in and fostering relationships between employers, large and small, and schools," Smith Family chief executive Lisa O'Brien said.
"It's a practical, commonsense response to a hugely serious problem."
Scott Ryan, parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Education, said the Partnership Brokers program was "always intended to finish and partnerships were funded to be self-sustaining".
He said the budget introduced funding for a "number" of new initiatives to help young people get work or study, including new work for dole arrangements and new trade support loans.
