Australia’s millennials are becoming unemployed generation but it's not their fault: report

texting on iphone — A woman uses her Apple iPhone 4 smartphone during a photo opportunity on a street in Seoul Reuters/Truth Leem

Millennials in Australia could be turning into the unemployed generation, according to a new report. It suggests that blaming the young ones for being jobless is not the right thing to do as facts state otherwise.

The report titled “Reality Bites: Australia’s Youth Unemployment In A Millennial Era,” released by the Brotherhood of St Laurence, paints a picture of young jobseekers in Australia. It shows that unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 24 is more than double the general figure.

One in five people lands in the long-term unemployed category. Up to 50,000 between 15 and 24 years old in Australia had been out of work for a year or more.

While some millennials find themselves blamed, the report argues that pointing fingers at the young and jobless is not supported by facts after analysis has shown that unemployed millennials "have consistently undertaken just as wide a range of job search activities as unemployed people aged 25 and over.” Instead of blaming them for being jobless, young people must be equipped with the networks they need to welcome new opportunities for employment. They must also be provided with the knowledge to explore the labour market.

The report recommends investing in job creation at local, state and federal levels. Such move, according to the paper, will generate opportunities for young people not just today, but also in the future.

Tony Nicholson, the executive director of Brotherhood of St Laurence, has released a statement, saying politicians could not be complacent about the young people’s predicament. He said the issue is a reality that many millennials in Australia deal with, especially for those residing in remote regions and disadvantaged suburbs.

Nicholson has warned that being unemployed for a long period of time poses a threat to young people’s economic and personal wellbeing. “More broadly, it worries me that our social security payments for our unemployed people - both the Youth Allowance and Newstart - are now so low that this is hindering unemployed people’s hunt for paid work, for example to be able to afford transport or appropriate clothes to attend job interviews,” he added, according to News.com.au.

The report utilised data from the longitudinal Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. It looked into the theory that today’s young people were less active in finding a job.