Dusseldorp Skills Forum, 2006.
The latest report in the Dusseldorp Skills Forum's series, 'How young people are faring', a series of research snapshots issued each year on the participation of young people in learning and work has been released.
In the 2006 DSF report, Mike Long of the Centre for the Economics of Education and Training identifies a significant pool of young people who are available and willing to become more active participants in the labour market. It reveals that as at May 2006, 12% (of 330,000) of Australians aged 15 to 24 years were unemployed, wanting work or working part-time, but wanting more hours. While full-time work and study participation rates among young adults were found to be at their highest level in two decades, 23% of young adults were not engaged in either full-time work or study. The report also found that while the number of full-time jobs for older Australians has risen by more than one million since 1995, it has declined by 14,000 for teenagers and 52,000 for young adults. Completing Year 12 was found to make a difference in young people’s ability to make a successful transition into full-time work or study: 20% of those who completed Year 12 were not in full-time work or study six months after completing school. This figure rose to 40% among those who only completed Year 11 and nearly 50% among those who only completed Year 10 or lower. In other findings from the report, almost as many young people who completed Year 12 go on to study at university (26%) as go on to study at TAFE or other forms of education (27%).
The conclusion to the report states that ‘…governments, employers and communities have good economic and social reasons to try to improve the transition of young people from school to further study and work… young people who make a poor transition from school to further education and work experience more financial and personal stress and lower levels of participation and integration with civil society. They are less satisfied with their lives' and that the longer a situation is allowed to persist in which part-time and intermittent work is the everyday reality for a significant proportion of the population, the greater risk it will create a culture of its own and become more difficult to change.’
This eighth annual report is supported this year by a summary paper ('How Young People Are Faring 2006: At a Glance'), and by expert commentaries and additional materials. All are available for free from the DSF website at: http://www.dsf.org.au/hypaf.html
(Source: Dusseldorp Skills Forum website, viewed 6 December 2006 at: http://www.dsf.org.au)