15- to 24-year-old Australians are bearing the brunt of burgeoning migration levels, with 100,000 less local youngsters employed and the youth unemployment rate rising from 8.8 per cent to 11.7 per cent in the last year.
New research conducted by the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University shows conclusively that over half a million overseas students, working holidaymakers, temporary visa holders and skilled migrants with work rights are taking entry level jobs that traditionally would have been the first rung on the employment ladder for our young people.
To make matters worse, when Immigration Minister Evans was recently asked to confirm that Australian workers had preference in the Australian labour market, he stated the following;
...we cannot create legal obstacles for overseas workers or introduce preferential treatment for Australian workers without compromising our international trading position and legal obligations.
So while it is pleasing and positive that our Prime Minister is writing lengthy articles condemning neo-liberal economics, it is a major concern that when it comes to the bread and butter issues like ensuring that young Australians do not end up on the unemployment scrap heap, it is business as usual with the false god known as the free trade agenda taking priority.
Previous downturns have proven that when young jobseekers have found it difficult to secure entry level jobs, they then find it hard to compete when the upturn comes and often fall into long term unemployment.
Australia is still suffering the effects of the Howard years when apprenticeships and training for young people were abandoned in favour of temporary migrant workers, often from poorer countries in the region, (which actually they need to hang onto for their own development).
Rudd Labor needs to urgently re-evaluate its priorities. Nothing is more important to our nation's future than securing job opportunities for our youth.
22 October 2009.
