SYDNEY, Dec. 9 (Xinhua) -- Australia's soaring long-term youth unemployment could be solved by training young people to take on a growing number of aged care roles, according to a report released on Monday by community organisation, Brotherhood of St Laurence.
The report showed that the number of Australians aged 15 to 24 who have been without a job for longer than one year has more than doubled from around 21,000 in 2009 to 46,990 in 2019.
This means that of all the unemployed youth in Australia, one in five has been out of work for over a year, compared to one in ten a decade ago.
Overall, roughly 265,000 young Australians are currently without jobs -- a youth unemployment rate of 12 percent, which is slightly higher than the 11.4 percent it was ten years ago in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis.
While the report says that many young Australians blame the older generations for their predicament -- the growing number of elderly people in Australia could in fact be a solution rather than a problem.
Commonwealth Department of Employment projections show that health care and social assistance is the fastest growing industry in Australia, which are expected to add a quarter of a million jobs by 2023.
"There is much work to done if today's young people are to be equipped to fill the skilled workforce needs of tomorrow," the report said.
"Attention is needed to train enough workers for the caring economy. The occupation of personal carers, particularly in disability or aged care, shows the biggest projected increase in jobs over the next few years."
The next three fastest growing industries are, construction, education and training, and professional, scientific and technical services.
Brotherhood's Executive Director Conny Lenneberg said the disproportionate strain on young people searching for a job, comes despite an otherwise expanding economy, and reducing youth unemployment should be a top priority for the government.
"Our analysis exposes the cruel irony of being young and long-term unemployed in Australia as we approach 30 years of continuous economic growth. There is no doubt youth unemployment overall remains an ongoing and urgent challenge," Lenneberg said.
"As we head into a new decade, reforming the vocational education and training system must be a top priority for policymakers."
