Labour Market Experiences of Teenage Australian Workers in the 21st Century

By Peter Brosnan and Rebecca Loudoun

The contention of the paper is that the youth labour market has deteriorated over the last three decades and is now much less favourable than that which faced the parents of today's teenagers.

Using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) this paper compares the labour market faced by today's teenagers with that of the previous generation. The contention of the paper is that the youth labour market has deteriorated over the last three decades and is now much less favourable than that which faced the parents of today's teenagers. Findings revealed that teenagers now face a highly competitive and limited labour market where most jobs are part-time, low paid and casual. Full-time jobs are hard to find, and those who cannot find them compete with school and university students who want parttime work. Moreover, many teenagers are forced to look for several part-time jobs to make ends meet. Competition from married women in some segment intensifies the competition further. Possible explanations for these findings along with implications for youths are explored in the paper.

In: 21st Century Work: High Road or Low Road: Proceedings of the 20th Conference of the Association of Industrial Relations Academics of Australia and New Zealand (AIRAANZ) vol. 1