Young People and Jobs – More Needed

4 May 2011

The CTU has welcomed the pre-Budget announcement of $55.2 million on work and training subsidies targeted at young people.

“However”, said Peter Conway CTU Secretary “this amount is over four years and a large part of it is in the Limited Service Volunteer scheme”.

“We would like to see more investment in the Skills for Growth and Job Ops parts of the package.”

Unemployment figures are being updated tomorrow but the last announcement showed that 25.5 percent of 15-19 year olds and 11.2 percent of 20-24 year olds were unemployed.

Peter Conway said that the Budget should focus on jobs, skills, lifting incomes for those struggling to make ends meet and speeding up the economic recovery rather than rolling out spending cuts.

“While the announcement today is welcome, including its emphasis on skills, it is too small given the scale of the problem of persistently high unemployment and the extremely high rates of joblessness among young people.”

ENDS

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