Already disadvantaged in the job market by the rapid growth of the "gig economy", this age group will be paying the price for the collapse of the Australian economy for decades to come.

They are being penalised in three key areas. These are education, employment opportunities, and retirement savings.

Who, for example, would want to studying for the higher school certificate or its equivalent right now? It has been the year from hell. Apprenticeships and training opportunities are drying up. The odds of finding even a "starter job" on leaving school are the lowest they have been in decades.

University students have also had to cope with off again-on again class cycles, significant cut backs in the sector, and the loss of the work opportunities to underwrite their academic endeavours.

Then there are those who have completed their studies and are trying to quit the gig economy for something with good prospects. This is the group that was singled out in a Productivity Commission report Climbing the jobs ladder slower released earlier this week. It found under 35s had already been struggling to transition into well paid careers before the pandemic hit.

Productivity Commissioner Catherine de Fontenay, noted that ever since the GFC young graduates had been competing in a Darwinian struggle for jobs that forced many to settle for less than what they wanted.

"For that age group [the under-35s], the past decade has been a period of intense competition for jobs, even before COVID-19, which will make things worse," she said. "It is likely to have long-term effects, even were it not for the COVID-19 crisis."

Dr de Fontenay said that while data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics Survey found average occupational scores - a measure of educational requirements and average earnings across careers - had generally risen, there had been a marked fall in opportunities for recent graduates from 2008 on.

"The likelihood that a university graduate would find a high score job fell back," she said. "Law graduates increasingly found themselves working as paralegals or in cafes. In turn, young people with vocational degrees were pushed further down... At the bottom of the ladder, part-time and casual jobs garnered more takers... average wages for workers under 35 fell between 2008 to 2018".

Dr de Fontenay said recent experience had shown young people who settled for work lower on the jobs ladder found it hard to make up the lost ground. "If a recent graduate started in a less attractive job, it was harder to climb to a more attractive one than before... [this] suggests that poor initial jobs for graduates have serious long term consequences. [This] predates the COVID-19 recession, but it has heightened relevance for it".

The financial outlook for under-35s has been made even worse by the need for many to clean out their superannuation accounts to stay solvent during the crisis. This is likely to leave many dependent on the pension for their retirement income decades down the track.

When the government comes to review the support payments that expire in September it must ensure assistance is available for the under-35s who are bearing the brunt of the economic crisis. If it fails to do so it will have turned its back on the future and risked letting a generation fall through the cracks.