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The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) draws on a wide range of information to form its assessment of current labour market conditions and its outlook for the labour market. One of the key labour market indicators that the RBA monitors and forecasts is the unemployment rate. This paper considers whether information contained in indicators that are typically viewed as signalling a change in conditions before it becomes apparent in the official labour market statistics - referred to here as 'leading indicators' - are helpful in forecasting the unemployment rate.

The paper finds that information contained in measures of unmet demand, such as job advertisements and vacancies, and consumers' expectations for unemployment, are useful in informing the RBA's near-term forecasts for the unemployment rate. Models containing these leading indicators can complement the RBA's existing framework for forecasting the unemployment rate, which also considers information such as developments in economic activity, insights from firms in the RBA's liaison program and the experience of economies overseas.

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Low employment quality and precarious employment have been associated with adverse mental health outcomes, yet the extent to which this association may be explained by the experience of unemployment 'scarring' has not yet been explored. From a life course perspective, understanding this possible confounding is necessary. Drawing on the United Kingdom's Understanding Society dataset and using latent class analysis, we derived a typology of employment quality across six dimensions and assessed the links between individuals' employment quality, unemployment history, and mental well-being and psychological distress. Our results show that precarious types of employment as well as a higher quality 'protected part-time' were linked to low mental well-being, though important gender differences were noted. Accounting for past unemployment did not fully explain these associations. No such adverse associations were observed for increased psychological distress. Our results help further the understanding of employment quality as a social determinant of health and highlight the need for both life course and gender-sensitive research in this area.

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After the German Reunification in 1990, East Germany transitioned from a centrally planned economic system to a market economy. At the time, upskilling through adult education was deemed essential for the successful integration of the workforce into the labor market. Besides substantial mandatory training programs provided by active labor market policies, Volkshochschulen (VHS) were the most important providers of voluntary adult education. The economic effects of their courses have not been analyzed so far. Based on newly digitized data, we evaluate the effects of VHS courses on unemployment in a county-level analysis of East Germany between 1991 and 2002. Our identification strategy is based on a decentralized expansion of courses, which led to substantial and quasi-random variation in course numbers. We find no evidence that VHS courses harmed labor market integrations, in contrast to some active labor market policies. Courses did not affect subsequent unemployment on average. Yet, in counties neighboring West Germany, we find that courses reduced unemployment. Low labor demand may have restricted the realization of education effects. As both work-related and purely recreational courses reduced unemployment in counties bordering West Germany, our results also hint towards the relevance of social capital for successful labor market integrations.

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Youth unemployment has been an issue in European countries for many years. However, the attention paid to it by policymakers has varied over time, and there are high cross-country variations in both the size of the phenomenon, representations of it, and policy interventions. This study adds an intra-country component to the country-comparative dimension and assesses the factors affecting how young adults perceive youth unemployment. From a theoretical perspective, we postulate that the perception of youth unemployment as an issue depends on both sociotropic and egocentric evaluations. To address these research questions, we analyse data from the Cultural Pathways to Economic Self-Sufficiency (CUPESSE) dataset, which comprises responses from more than 20,000 young adults (aged 18-35) from 11 European countries (nine European Union member states together with Switzerland and Turkey). The empirical analysis is based on multilevel modelling and reveals that the problem perception varies both across countries and within them following the hypothesised pattern. The findings show that two factors are particularly important for explaining young people's perception of youth unemployment as a problem: first, whether they experienced their parents being unemployed when growing up, and second, whether their friends are unemployed.

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This scoping review maps key studies on the impact of technological advancement on higher education students' employability. Through the analysis of 29 studies on university graduates' study-to-work transition in the context of the latest technological development, key results underline the changing nature of jobs and suggest that the impact of technological unemployment depends on the occupations and tasks examined. The study calls for universities to reinterpret employability in the era of uncertainty but also discusses higher education and system policy interventions to prepare for the technological disruption in the labour market transition. Policy recommendations suggest defining clearer scopes (e.g., automation or [artificial intelligence] AI when evaluating the impact of technological advancement in the higher education research context and reducing the knowledge gaps for skills and mindsets necessary for future graduates.

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One common critique of the unemployment rate is that it understates the true level of spare capacity in the economy by excluding individuals who are willing and able to work but are currently classified as Not in the Labour Force (NILF). However, it is possible to expand this definition to include those who express interest in working. In this note we investigate the importance of these definitional choices on the level and cyclicality of unemployment. We focus on the standard definition of unemployment favoured by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and three expanded definitions.

Unemployment can be measured in different ways depending on how we classify job search and readiness. Using alternative definitions of unemployment we find: (1) including those who search passively leads to a 1.25 percentage point increase in the reported unemployment rate; (2) young workers are most significantly affected by these changes, increasing the observed unemployment rate by approximately 2 percentage points; and (3) this does not affect our view of the economic cycle, as the proportion of individuals passively searching is relatively similar through time. Overall, the current measure of unemployment may hide some details about the level of unemployment but broader measures that include passive searchers do not appear to be better indicators of the economic cycle.

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The South African government is making considerable investments in education to reduce youth unemployment. There is also a plethora of schemes to induce youth employment, including: a skills levy grant system to encourage workplace training; public employment services to match work-seekers to employers; financial incentives and tax breaks for apprenticeship, learnerships, and internships; employment tax incentives to encourage employers to hire young people; a training layoff scheme for distressed employers to prevent retrenchments; an expanded public works programme (EPWP) to hire the unskilled; and many youth development and job creation initiatives by state and non-state actors to transition youth into employment and self-employment.

The myriad of youth job-creating initiatives to date have not had the desired effect of reducing the youth unemployment rate, as demonstrated by the Quarterly Labour Force Studies statistics. Doing more of the same thing is unlikely to have the desired effect. Conditionalities are an untested weapon in the arsenal against growing youth unemployment. It is a powerful tool that the government can employ to change behaviours on an industrial scale. Getting conditionalities right in public procurement is not a simple task. It requires a capable public service, clear thinking, impeccable honesty, strong design capabilities and commitment to the public good. But it is vital if we are to stop youth unemployment in its tracks.

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How to make own advantages when submitting applications and increase the probability of getting a job early? The target of this study is to analyse the determinants of unemployment duration and the probability of seeking a job after graduation. It is carried out by using survival analysis along with the Cox model and Kaplan-Meier estimator and based on the dataset integrated from survey data and academic data. The empirical results show that taking part-time jobs related to training majors and setting goals as well as planning to go internship early have a positive influence on the ability of students to get a job early.

The results also reveal that the mother's occupation, the type of internment enterprise, the type of work contract, and the refusal of job opportunities offered previously have a negative impact on students' chances of escaping unemployment. The findings are the basis for students to properly assess their advantages and disadvantages. Thereby, they can determine the goal of a job that suits their capacity and have a reasonable plan combined with their efforts to achieve it. They also support companies to identify groups of potential students and build their suitable evaluation criteria in recruitment.

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This report is part of a series that provides an assessment of how well active labour market policies (ALMPs) help all groups to move into productive and rewarding jobs, and policy recommendations for improving their effectiveness. The report uses rich administrative data from different registers in Greece to evaluate the impact of two types of ALMPs: wage subsidies and training for unemployed people. The analysis looks at outcomes beyond the probability of employment and examines how the selected ALMPs affect different population groups. The report finds a positive impact of both types of ALMPs and makes recommendations for further improving the effectiveness of Greece's ALMPs and strengthening the capacity of the authorities to conduct ALMP impact evaluations.

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The [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic disrupted employment in many ways and reshaped patterns of work. This report works to better understand the conditions that impact unemployment and that keep individuals from finding a job that fits. It focuses on unemployment examining those who are unemployed and looking for work and those who are unemployed and not looking for work. This distinction highlights concerns around widespread discouragement as the root cause of disengagement with the workforce.

Understanding the dynamics that lead to long-term unemployment are critical to inform strategies to develop skills and create opportunities for all. Specifically, the purpose of this analysis was to further investigate the following research questions: Which demographic groups are more likely to experience long-term unemployment? How do those who are unemployed and looking for work differ from those that are unemployed and not looking for work? Do we see demographic differences based on variables such as educational attainment, physical health or disability status? What are the reasons why some unemployed individuals are not looking for work?

Key insights: (1) Individuals with longer durations of unemployment (over 15 months) are more likely to be over the age of 35, more likely to say that their physical and mental health are fair or poor, more likely to have a disability and less likely to have a postsecondary education; (2) Extended unemployment significantly impacts lifelong earnings potential. As individuals spend more time out of work, they miss out on career advancements and salary increases, which cumulatively affect their financial stability and long-term economic security; and (3) The most common type of reason for not looking for work is related to health. According to the survey results, 63 per cent of the respondents report that they are not looking for a job due to physical or mental health issues.

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