The edited article from the ABC is so good, I’ve included there link here. It shows the dire state of the employment market and how the ‘low’ ABS unemployment figures hide the true situation.
At any given time, there is a proportion of the population over the age of 15 who are not working. Some want to work, while others do not.
Recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figures show that earlier this year the proportion of that population grew to a size that has several economists sounding alarm bells.
They are two reasons that millions of Australians are on the workforce sidelines.
The first is that the “system” actively pushes people out of the jobs market. The second is that it’s simply too soul-destroying being unemployed, as the ABS defines it, or months, or even years on end.
There are millions of Australians, according to these recent figures, not engaged in any work.
To be precise, in February, 2.2 million were not employed and wanted to work — and that was before any of the recent lockdowns came into effect.
Of those 2.2 million, 808,000 were looking for work. This is the group that falls under the accepted definition of “unemployed”. But the data also reveals 1.81 million did not look for work.
The numbers raise a critical question: what’s stopping folks who are perfectly willing and able to land a job from finding work?
Unemployed graduates make up a big chunk of the group. It takes a graduate about 2.6 years to find a full time job. A large section is also people (mainly women) looking after kids.
The other reason is if people don’t find a job three months after they’ve become unemployed, they’re in trouble. Beyond 12 months your chance of getting a job is less than halved.
The ABS figures show that many Australians decide not to get payments from Centrelink, because it’s a punitive, bureaucratic, top down nightmare.
Here’s a good story from the ABC on people battling to get a job:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-16/the-stories-of-australia-unemployment-crisis/100464878
Economists they get their income from savings, investments and help from friends and family. There are those who collect the dole but because it’s so low, it reinforces their poverty, so they struggle to get work, to get a resume done, to buy a new suit or jeans, good shoes and present professionally.
See link for more…