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This submission to the Future Employment Services Consultation is made by the Brotherhood of St Laurence on behalf of the Transition to Work Community of Practice (TtW CoP). The TtW CoP is a network of providers working with and for young unemployed people. Collectively, we represent almost one quarter of all TtW providers across Australia. Our submission focuses on what an effective employment services system looks like for young people (aged 15-25) who are unemployed. Our response is drawn from national and international literature, and our collective experience in developing and delivering services which connect young people to education, training and employment, and build their capabilities for achieving sustainable livelihoods.

The submission argues that, in the context of a changing labour market, employment services must provide young people with: (1) a pathway into decent work (i.e. work that is secure and pays a living wage); and (2) capabilities that set them up for medium and long-term economic security. An employment service capable of achieving this purpose is: (a) part of a broader National Employment Strategy; (b) youth specific; (c) open to all young job seekers; (d) evidence informed; (e) focused on practice; (f) framed around agency (activation) and mutual accountability (incentives) for the job seeker; (g) collaborative, working with: young people to co-design their pathway; the community to integrate with other services and employers; and other providers to share what works; and (h) cost effective - delivers results at improved value to the tax payer by optimising the productivity of providers, and by recognising the most effective type and point of intervention in a young person's journey. A fit-for-purpose commissioning approach is essential if the youth employment service is to achieve its purpose and recommendations are made on how such an approach would look.

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The purpose of this literature review is to examine youth hubs or centres and consider supportive policy frameworks for them. The findings will inform Brotherhood of St Laurence service delivery in Frankston and at the proposed Caroline Springs Community Youth Centre. The larger objective of this review is to survey international and Australian research and policy on local youth services that respond to the needs of the whole person by integrating or ‘joining up’ local services and programs. The early part of this report considers how the strengths and weaknesses of young people are taken up in youth policy and programs: for example, is a deficits approach taken, in which youth are treated as ‘at risk’ and their issues conceived as ‘problems’, or is a capabilities or strengths-based approach adopted?

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The Brotherhood of St Laurence launched the ‘My chance, our future’ campaign in February 2014 to draw attention to the crisis of youth unemployment in Australia. Rising youth unemployment imposes a burden on the economy through both direct and indirect costs. Based on Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey data, this April 2014 update on long-term youth unemployment reports that more than 50,000 young people are now classified as long-term jobless. The unemployment rate nationally among those aged 15 to 24 at March 2014 stands at 12.5 per cent - more than double the overall rate of unemployment. The experience of being young and unemployed is also changing. The continual rise in the incidence of youth unemployment has come alongside an increase in the length of unemployment for those aged 15 to 24. These findings emphasise that unemployment for many youth in Australia today is not a passing phase.

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The story of youth employment has become a tale of two Australias. Amid more than 20 years of overall economic growth, youth unemployment is rife in some communities, and geography is helping shape a young person's destiny. While some parts of the nation offer young people abundant opportunity, in other areas Australia's young job hunters are struggling for their chance. A headline national youth unemployment rate of 12.2 per cent - which continues at more than double the rate of overall unemployment - masks striking locational differences. In five regions, all outside capital cities, unemployment among 15 to 24 year olds in the labour force exceeds 20 per cent. Youth unemployment is at its extreme - more than 65 per cent - in a thinly populated but vast tract of land in the Queensland outback, encompassing Cape York as well as the mining centres of Mount Isa and Weipa. This report maps youth unemployment trends, zeroing in on 12-month averages to identify 20 'hotspots' that have the highest youth unemployment rates in Australia. Comparing their current youth unemployment rates with two years ago reveals that in all but one of those hotspot regions youth unemployment had worsened. Conversely, in the 20 regions with the lowest youth unemployment rates in 2018, all but two recorded lower rates today than two years ago.

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The Life Chances Study has followed some 140 young people from diverse backgrounds since they were infants. In 2008 they turned 18: many finished school, while others were already launched into the world beyond. This Stage 9 report examines their Year 12 completion and their [Equivalent National Tertiary Entrance Rank] ENTER scores, and also provides important glimpses into the lives of young Australians at a key point of transition, from school to university, TAFE, apprenticeships, work and, for some, unemployment. The report considers some implications for the social inclusion policy agenda.

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Young unemployed Australians confront serious transport challenges as they try to conduct their job search with 41 per cent of 18 to 24 year-old jobseekers not having a driver's licence. Youth unemployment remains high - close to 13 per cent nationally - is concentrated in the nation's regional areas and fast-growing outer suburbs, both geographies where public transport options are notoriously constrained. With an unemployment rate of 12.8 per cent, young people aged 15 to 24 in the labour market are more than three times as likely to be unemployed as those aged 25 and over, who have an unemployment rate of 4.2 per cent. The large gap in unemployment rates suggests young people's experiences in the labour market are different from those of older people.

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As Australia's youth unemployment rate has continued to grow since the global financial crisis, the aspiration of being able to work is becoming harder to achieve for too many young people. There are now more than a quarter of a million young Australians aged 15 to 24 who are unemployed. More than 50,000 of these have been jobless for more than a year and defined as long-term unemployed. Due to the shift to a knowledge and service-based economy, employers increasingly place high importance on education, skills and work experience. Consequently, the transition from school to work for the 60 per cent of young Australians who don't go on to university is more problematic than in previous decades.

Young people require support to acquire the skills, work experience and qualifications required by the modern economy. This policy paper draws on the Brotherhood of St Laurence's research, policy analysis and experience of working with young people to propose a range of practical opportunities available to the Australian government to boost youth employment. It recommends ways to re-deploy existing resources, to re-orient existing programs, and to demonstrate leadership in the creation of opportunities for young people. These recommendations are detailed under the following areas: (1) assisting young people to build their job readiness; (2) lifting school outcomes for the most disadvantaged young people; (3) reforming the training system to better prepare young people for work; (4) stimulating the availability of entry-level opportunities for young people; and (5) harnessing the efforts of business, governments and communities to tackle youth unemployment.

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The Brotherhood of St Laurence (BSL) campaign, ‘My chance, our future’, aims to bring attention to the crisis of youth unemployment in Australia. This snapshot of youth employment reports on the trends, youth unemployment hotspots, and a BSL aproposal for a national Youth Transitions Service comprising the following key elements: employability skills; work experience; coaching; vocational guidance; rapid action to re-engage a young person and boost their likelihood of returning to study or going on to future employment; and connecting with local employers. Show less

Amid a spate of recent headlines heralding that overall unemployment is falling, the situation for Australia's young people is considerably more fragile: 267,000 aged 15 to 24 are unemployed. The youth unemployment rate in October 2017 sat at 12.4 per cent (trend rate). This is still more than double the overall unemployment rate of 5.5 per cent, although below this century's peak of almost 14 per cent youth unemployment in 2014.

The disruptive impact of the 2008 global financial crisis remains a defining event in the trajectory of Australia's youth unemployment story. Youth unemployment - persistently high in the long wake of the GFC - is stifling the progress of too many young Australians as they attempt to make their transition to independent adulthood. The subset of young people who are long-term unemployed presents as a particular concern, trending upwards since the GFC. Remarkably, long-term youth unemployment represented 18.4 per cent of all young unemployed 15-24 year olds in September 2017 - almost one in five.

Using data from the longitudinal Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey, we also fact-checked the proposition promulgated in some quarters that higher unemployment rates for young people could in part be due to their being less active in looking for work. Our analysis showed, however, that unemployed youth have consistently undertaken just as wide a range of job search activities as unemployed people aged 25 and over. Blaming young unemployed people for their predicament is simply not supported by the facts.

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The Brotherhood of St Laurence launched the 'My chance, our future' campaign in February 2014 to draw attention to the crisis of youth unemployment in Australia. Rising youth unemployment imposes a burden on the economy through both direct and indirect costs. The March 2014 edition of 'Youth unemployment snapshot' examines some of the trends that are driving the direct costs of rising youth unemployment and canvasses some of the indirect costs. It includes maps showing the top spots for youth jobless spikes. Show less