Young & out of work
The hidden costs of unemployment
By Tristan Vaughan Ewins
MELBOURNE — The official national figures put youth unemployment at an appalling 28.4%. The latest available figures for Victoria showed that the rate had risen almost 2% to 32.3%: officially, almost a third of young people aged 15-19 were searching for work.
Even these disgraceful figures are understated. The real level of unemployment is hidden by the Australian Bureau of Statistics' exclusion from its definition of "unemployment" of those who work for more than one hour a week — even if they receive no pay. It would be more likely that the level of youth unemployment is at least 40% in Melbourne.
Between March 1990 and March 1991, 35% of Melbourne's full-time jobs for under 20s were wiped out. As well, 6700 part-time jobs were lost. In the worst hit areas of the western suburbs of Melbourne there has been a 52% drop in jobs.
Those in high schools who face the prospect of passing from their final exams straight to Hawke's Jobsearch program are becoming increasingly alienated.
I spoke to two year 11 students, Georgia Stathopolous and Briony Greer, from a high school in an outer eastern suburb of Melbourne. Their comments reflected the growing level of youth anger, alienation and depression.
"It's disgusting", said Georgia. "Look at all the poor thousands of people out of work. The government has fucked up again. All we are are pawns to them. The Liberals are just as bad. All they care about are profits. They're just selfish. If they cared then they wouldn't have let this happen."
Briony commented: "Women and teenagers, all those who don't conform are just victimised. Look at all the censorship and fat pigs like Packer ... They don't care if we can't get a job. It doesn't hurt them. Look at those late-night ads on TV making women out to be sex objects. It's so demeaning. I'm really bitter and angry but it's all just so hopeless. There's nothing you can do."
The alienation and the feeling of hopelessness arise from a society that tells its young people that this is the way the system is and that it cannot be changed. Those who rebel often do so by crime and violence because, wherever they look, they are not offered any hope. The price that society must pay is much higher than the cost of dole cheques.
With only one job to every 33 unemployed people there is little cause for young people to even bother looking for a job: employers are less likely to employ them because of their lack of experience anyway.
Nationally, young women are the hardest hit. Of the total number of employed females, over 40% are employed part time: even those young to have a job are still unlikely to be able to work full time.
Long-term unemployment is presently resting at 220,000 nationwide and, once again, these figures are probably understated. More and more young people are being forced to live at home when they would much rather be living independently. Many of those who are unemployed while in the 15-19 age group will find themselves continuing to do this well into their 20s.
Parents forced to pay for the upkeep of their sons/daughters are then disadvantaged themselves. Heightened family tensions can result in domestic violence. The Brotherhood of St Laurence estimates that as many as 70,000 young people are without a home.
As young people are alienated like this they suffer from a chronic lack of self-esteem and experience an increase in an often misdirected anger at society as a whole. Suicide rates have climbed with the unemployment crisis. Many people turn to "subcultures" that often involve crime and violence as a way of at least temporarily escaping from their predicament.
ABC TV's Four Corners program on November 18 reported that in Wollongong the Needle Exchange Centre now provides 8000 needles a month; before the unemployment crisis, it supplied 600 a month. The program pointed out that, as the crime rate spirals in the Illawarra, one of the few growth areas is private security.
Young unemployed people have little hope when inadequate government welfare spending ensures that they remain below the poverty line.
So while Bob Hawke boasts about reducing inflation and while we are told again and again that a recovery is "just around the corner", we face a social crisis with regard to the plight of young people. It's about time we started questioning the priorities of our politicians and their "economic rationalism" — which seems to be anything but rational.
I have spent some time with some of Melbourne's street kids, and I know the depression and frustration they feel. They may not be begging in the mall, but they're there, and there are more of them every week. In a system that puts private profit before human need, the youth of the '90s will be a generation without hope.
[The writer is a year 11 student in Melbourne.]