Youth job fix is right

Work experience is the answer to tackling youth unemployment, so stop treating it as a problem, writes Elaine Mead

WHETHER you are working in a school, college or university, a training provider, local employer or employability organisation, the truth is that youth unemployment is a societal issue.

Tasmania has one of the lowest educational attainment levels in Australia. About 28 per cent of Tasmanians aged 15 and over have only completed Year 10 secondary education. This figure is 10 per cent higher than the proportion of Australians nationally (aged 15 and over) who have only completed up to Year 10.

Now consider, 45 per cent of Tasmanians aged 15 and over have not completed education beyond Year 12 secondary education, meaning the proportion of Tasmanians with secondary education as their highest educational attainment is 12 points higher than the rest of Australia. Young people can leave high school at Year 10 (and most of them do) and decide what they want to do from there.

And what they seem to do is end up unemployed.

The average youth unemployment rate in April was 13.8 per cent, equivalent to 5800 unemployed young Tasmanians. The worst youth unemployment hot spots include Tasmania’s South-East, the Hobart region and the West/North-West of Tasmania, with unemployment rates of 17.8 per cent, 16.9 per cent and 15 per cent respectively.

If the youth unemployment increases to 25 per cent, as it is likely to, owing to COVID-19 and the reduction in our key industries (hospitality, tourism and retail), 10,550 young Tasmanian could be without jobs.

The bottom line is that Tasmania is failing its young people, and COVID is not to blame.

I read a paper by University of Tasmania researchers (whom I owe all due credit for the up-to-date stats) who argue that tackling the problem in view of the current pandemic involves “additional income support higher than the standard unemployment benefit for this cohort in order to encourage low-income Tasmanians aged between 17-25 years to attend tertiary education” (Joaquin Vespignani and Maria Yanotti).

Ignoring the entrenched issue of youth employment and low educational attainment as superseding the current pandemic here in Tasmania, they seem to have missed the mark. Attending tertiary education is beneficial for young people and the broader economic society, but young Tasmanians seem to have little appetite for achieving the minimum educational attainment from high school as it is.

Upskilling them through studying and academia won’t mean anything if they still don’t have the skills or mindset to attach their studies to career pathways and finding work.

So, what does work in tackling youth unemployment? Work experience.

Let’s take a look at a local case study, Hamlet Hobart. A modest eatery, it ticks many boxes, with one very major, and incredibly important key difference: “Hamlet is a registered charity that delivers targeted training and work readiness skills in order to tackle the barriers, which prevent disadvantaged Tasmanians from participating in work and community life. We opened our doors in April 2016 and have provided over 22,000 hours of work experience to over 250 Tasmanians.”

Of the 250 or so disadvantaged young people who have taken part in the work experience program, 100 have gone on to secure paid employment.

Work experience is not just about placing a student with an employer for a few weeks, dusting your hands off and placing a tick next to “abolishing youth unemployment from my community”. It’s about structure, quality, employer buy-in, and connection with the next step — all things Hamlet delivers.

Too often I’m a part of conversations in the sector here with people shrugging their shoulders alongside platitudes of “what do we do?” when it comes to the problem of youth unemployment. The solution is right here.

Imagine if we took the Hamlet model and created a structured community-wide work experience program that started in Year 9 and saw employers with up to 10 employees taking on one student, employers with up to 50 employees taking on two students, and so on.

Imagine if instead of pumping money into unemployment support for young people, we paid companies a subsidy to take on a young person and pay them a small stipend during work experience. Imagine that young person learning about pay slips, bank accounts and money management (financial literacy!), alongside gaining practical experience.

Imagine if we took it one step further and started pipelining successful work placement students into apprenticeships so that young people can see why upskilling and qualifications make a difference.

Tasmania, as a small island, is uniquely situated to instigate such a community-wide plan and proactively tackle both youth unemployment and low educational attainment.

Imagine if we just did something a little bit different and the difference it could make.