Family money: Susan Hely

It’s tough out there but the right skills and qualifications will help

When my daughter found a real job, I can’t tell you what a huge relief it was. She had a passion for chemistry but if you look at the statistics for how successful chemistry graduates are, only 38% have found a job after four months. This compares with 85% of teachers, 87% of nurses and 81% of doctors.

If your child is still at school or doing further study, it is always enlightening to look at employment trends and where the jobs are. Being a parent and funding your kids is a long road and eventually you want it to end. You want them to follow their passion but also to stay motivated and secure meaningful employment.

But young people are twice as likely to be unemployed and certain parts of Australia have much higher rates than the national average of 12.2% for 15- to 24-year-olds.

The labour market is complex and many factors influence job prospects, according to the report Australian Jobs

2016 by the Department of Employment. It recommends a positive attitude, a willingness to learn and participation in entry-level jobs or volunteer positions to gain experience and work skills.

It found people who study when they leave school are generally less likely to be unemployed and are paid more than those who don’t study. But there are other paths apart from university such as TAFEs (referred to as VET or vocational education and training) and apprenticeships.

While university qualifications certainly help improve employment prospects, this advantage has weakened in the past few years. In 2015 only 67% of graduates with a bachelor degree and 83% of those with a master’s degree found employment either full time or part time. In 2015, 74.2% of VET graduates were employed (full time or part time) six months after their training. Those who undertook their training as part of an apprenticeship or traineeship had stronger employment outcomes, with 84.1% employed six months after their training.

Don’t forget, too, that there are millions of people who find rewarding, long-term careers in occupations that don’t require any post-school qualifications. One of these is sales assistants, the largest occupation in Australia (more than 500,000).

But rapid advances in technology, such as the internet, will dramatically change labour markets, according to the CSIRO report Tomorrow’s Digitally Enabled Workforce – Megatrends and Scenarios for Jobs and Employment in Australia over the Next 20 Years. Robots will take over the human tasks that are highly automated.

The report says that workers with a mix of technical skills and interpersonal aptitudes will have the best prospects for meaningful employment. Jobs involving creativity, complex judgment, advanced reasoning, social interaction and emotional intelligence are likely to grow in the decades ahead and are less likely to be affected by advances in automation and artificial intelligence.

The CSIRO report presents six examples of new jobs that may be created in the coming years:

Big data analysts Complex decision support analysts Remote-controlled vehicle operators Customer experience experts Personalised preventative health helpers Online chaperones (managing risks with identity theft, reputational damage, social media bullying and internet fraud).

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Half of all new jobs over the next four years will be in four industries: healthcare and social assistance (250,000), professional, scientific and technical services (150,000), education training (121,700) and retail trade (106,000). The three industries that are contracting and will experience job losses are manufacturing (down by 45,700), mining (31,900) and agriculture, forestry and fishing (9400).

SALARIES: WHO GETS WHAT

The highest starting salaries are: Dentistry ($80,000 a year) Optometry ($80,000 a year) Medicine ($65,000 a year) Education ($61,000 a year) Earth sciences ($60,000 a year) Engineering ($60,000 a year) Mathematics ($60,000 a year) The starting salaries for engineering fell over the year (down from $62,000 in 2014), and education appeared in the top five for the first time in 10 years.