How can young people secure a better future in Australia
Young people in Australia must come to terms with the new work reality and how it will significantly impact on our future.
The Foundation for Young Australians 2018 report, The New Work Reality, documented the journeys of 14,000 young people over a decade and found that half of Australia’s 25 year-olds were unable to secure full-time employment despite 60% of them holding post-school qualifications.
This ground-breaking Australian research has also uncovered the following findings of young people which will be relevant for our decision-making process:
(1) 31.5% are unemployed or underemployed.
There are more young job seekers in the job market now than ever before. As a result, job markets are becoming very competitive environments. Gaining a competitive advantage over other job seekers will be the only primary goal for school leavers and graduates.
(2) Three in four young people do not believe that they possess the relevant vocational and practical work experience to gain full-time work.
Students must constantly be creating opportunities for their services to gain relevant vocational and practical work experience that will give them the required competitive edge over other job seekers and graduates.
(3) Half lacked the technical skills needed to gain full-time work.
Young people must intentionally acquire the required technical skills to gain the appropriate full-time employment in their field of study.
(4) One in four lacked the necessary interview and job application skills to be able to attain full-time work.
Students must plan their time to gain the necessary interview and job application skills to prepare them for the competitive hiring process upon graduation.
(5) Seven in ten saw insufficient job availability as a barrier for them to enter the full-time workforce.
The reality is that there is an insufficient number of job vacancies for the increasing number of educated job seekers. The number of job vacancies is decreasing as businesses are not requiring as many workers to perform jobs and tasks that have been automated.
(6) On average, the transition from full-time education to full-time work took 2.6 years.
Without a doubt, it will take longer for graduates and job seekers to find suitable or available jobs. Parents are warned – your children may be living with you longer than you think!
(7) A student with 2,000 hours of relevant paid employment was found to make the transition to full-time work 5 months faster than a student without relevant experience. A student with 5,000 hours of relevant paid employment was found to accelerate the transition by 12 months.
The key phrase to take note of is “relevant paid employment”. It’s not just any work that will give a competitive edge to a graduate.
(8) Courses that teach enterprise skills can increase the speed of attaining full-time work by 17 months. Enterprise skills are defined as transferable skills that include problem-solving, communication, teamwork, and creativity.
School leavers (and job seekers) must consciously focus on continuously acquiring the relevant enterprise skills to gain all possible competitive edge over other job seekers.
(9) By choosing employment with a strong future focus like being a ‘carer’ (i.e., nursing, social workers), ‘technologist’ (i.e., software engineers, web administrator, ICT business analysts), or an ‘informer’ (i.e., teachers, policy analysts, event organizers), a young person can speed up the transition to full-time employment by five (5) months.
School leavers must actively consider high demand jobs that are projected to remain high in the future. It is about being job-ready and future-ready.
(10) A young person who is happy with and has a positive mindset about their career prospects begins working full-time hours two months faster than a young person who is not happy or positive with their career prospects. Mindset and wellbeing can greatly impact on the opportunities that a young person perceives that are available to them.
Other Australian research also paints a bleak picture
There are other Australian findings listed below that are relevant for our consideration and decision-making:
(1) The number of job advertisements on SEEK’s employment website declined by 7.8% over the year to July 2019. ANZ’s equivalent advertisement series also saw a sharp fall of 9.1% over 2018-19. (Deloitte, 2019)
This downward trend of available job vacancies will only increase pressure on job seekers.
After rising for two consecutive months, ANZ Job Ads fell 2.8% in August 2019. This pushed the annual decline down to -11.4%. (ANZ, 2019)
(2) One-third of jobs created in Australia over the past 25 years have been less secure, temporary, part-time or self-employment. (Foundation for Young Australians, 2017)
Long-term job security is now dead. Workplaces are filling with short-term freelancers and contractors rather than on-going full-time workers.
The requirements placed on these short-term workers will increase. They are expected to continuously acquire new or updated skills and knowledge to meet the ever-changing employer demands.
(3) 31.7% of all employment is now part-time – the highest percentage ever recorded. (Centre for Future Work, 2018)
Rather than having just one job, many workers will now require more than one job or contracting work to make ends meet. Financial stability will be an issue as many people are living pay-cheque to pay-cheque.
(4) By 2025, Gen Z will make up 27% of the Australian workforce where 1 in 2 is predicted to obtain a university degree. (McCrindle, 2019)
Competition amongst younger more qualified job-seekers will only intensify. Therefore, it is imperative that young people consciously develop a competitive edge over other job seekers as early as possible.
(5) 70% of young people are currently learning skills that will be redundant by 2030. (Foundation for Young Australians, 2019)
Skills will come and go faster than ever before. Acquiring the right skills now, just for doing the work now, will be the key to securing a job in the shortest possible time. The just-in-case knowledge acquisition practiced by many education institutions will be dead.
(6) Nearly 60% of Australian students (and 70% in vocational education training (VET)) are currently studying or training for jobs where at least two-thirds of jobs will be automated. (Foundation for Young Australians, 2017)
Students must be prepared to pivot and change subjects and even courses to remain employable after graduation. Therefore, don’t get stress over the initial course selection. There’s no perfect course for the perfect job – always be ready for a change.
(7) Currently, only 19% of a person’s learning and training occurs after the age of 21. But by 2040, this number is predicted to more than double to 41%. Most of this extra learning will on-the-job training and short flexible courses (Google Australia, 2019)
There are many online short courses or virtual learning opportunities offered by reputable universities when traditional enrolment into a brick-and-mortar college or university will become irrelevant. There will no longer be any boundary or barriers for continuous learning.
(8) 70% of young people are getting their first job in roles that will either look very different or be completely lost in the next 10 to 15 years due to automation. (Foundation for Young Australians, 2017)
Job seekers and workers must be flexible and ready to pivot to stay relevant and job-ready. Jobs, jobs, and careers will constantly be transformed by automation. Perfect jobs and long-lasting careers are dead.
(9) From 1991 to 2015, jobs that require high skill (i.e., professionals) and high touch (i.e., community and personal services) have grown significantly, as shown in the diagram below. (Foundation for Young Australians, 2017)
As the demand for high skill and high touch jobs is projected to grow in the future, school leavers should be focusing on these jobs by acquiring job-specific soft and technical skills.
(10) Young people are showing signs that they are not coping with modern-day living and are experiencing mental health conditions at an ever-increasing rate. In 2019, 47% of 18 to 24-year-olds and 45.1% of 35 to 49-year-olds in Australia reported having a mental health condition. (Roy Morgan, 2019)
With the ever-changing nature of work, education, finance, and modern living, many young people are not coping well. This is where parents must take an active role in understanding these issues and help guide the decision-making process for their children including offering the appropriate support.
(11) The direct private costs of attaining a tertiary education in Australia are almost $100,000 for men and $75,000 for women. (OECD, 2014)
The cost of formal education will only get higher in the future. There will come a time when we must objectively question the cost-benefit for such high investment. Let’s have an open and honest discussion about the utility of institutions of higher learning in helping graduates find their first jobs by meeting the requirements of employers.
(12) The average Australian student debt stands at over $20,000, compared with around $15,000 just five years ago. More than one in 20 people with a higher education debt owe more than $50,000, while the number owing more than $100,000 has quadrupled over the past five years, as shown in the diagram below. (Australian Tax Office, 2018)
The cost of formal higher education has also increased the debt owed by graduates. This student debt burden can linger on till retirement. It can cause significant mental health issues and financial stress for young people.
(13) By 2030 it is predicted that we will, on average, spend 30% more time per week learning skills on the job; spend double the time at work solving problems, spend 41% more time on critical thinking and judgment, and 77% more time using science and mathematics skills; utilise verbal communication and interpersonal skills for 7 hours a week each (up 17%); and develop an entrepreneurial mindset due to having less management (down 26%), less organisational coordination (down 16%) and less teaching (down 10%). (Foundation for Young Australians, 2017)
On the job learning and acquisition of skills will become far more important than a classroom setting. This has implications in terms of the length required by students for formal education versus on-the-job learning.
In a 2019 Deloitte research report, The path to prosperity – Why the future of work in human, it was found in Australia that by 2030:
(1) 86% of jobs will be knowledge worker jobs.
(2) One-quarter of the workforce will be professionals. They are concentrated mostly in business services, health, education, or engineering.
(3) Two-thirds of jobs will be soft-skill intensive.
Which Australian course?
This is the key question in everyone’s minds.
Without a doubt, the key benefit of higher education is the open access to professional jobs.
In most fields, Australian graduates with higher Australian Tertiary Admission Rank (ATARs) find professional jobs more easily than others, as shown in the diagram below. (Grattan Institute, 2019)
Grattan’s analysis also tells us that:
(1) Two in three high-ATAR law graduates are in professional employment soon after finishing their degree, compared to only one in eight low-ATAR law graduates.
Doing well in school is important for setting the right foundation for future success.
(2) Even high-ATAR law graduates have less chance of professional employment soon after graduation than lower-ATAR engineering, education, or nursing graduates. Rates of professional employment are high across all ATAR levels for these graduates.
Picking the future-demand jobs or fields of study like engineering, education, and health can make a big difference.
(3) Relatively few recent science and humanities graduates find professional employment even if they have a high ATAR. Only half of the employed high-ATAR science graduates and only about 40% of humanities graduates find professional work soon after completing their courses.
Graduates of these popular courses must compete for vacant jobs open to applicants from a wide range of fields.
The specialisation will be the key to the future of work. Generalist will find it harder to secure a job in the future.
