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May 16th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
MOST of Australia’s unemployed youth should spend a large part of their spare time studying.
Why?
Because most of them are students.
Full-time students.
Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday showed that there were 125,100 people in the 15- to 19 year-old age bracket officially classed as unemployed in April.
That was down from 152,900 in February.
That pattern is normal, because youth unemployment tends to push up in the summer months after the school and university years end, then fall through the autumn months.
There is an exception to this seasonal pattern – when the economy is in trouble, as it was in the early 1990s, or 2001 or 2009, things tends not to get better in April.
So the fall between February and April is a sign that the economy is doing okay.
It might not be going flat out, but it’s keeping its head above water, generating enough jobs to keep new entrants into the labour market a fair chance of getting a job.
At present, according to the data, the average unemployed youth in April had been out of a job and looking for employment for just over 18 weeks, which is just about exactly the average for the past 15 Aprils.
Of course, 18 weeks is a long time.
But it’s 35 weeks less than 53 weeks the average unemployed baby-boomer in the 55-plus age group spends looking for a job.
And it gives the youngsters plenty of time for study.
At least the 75,100 or 60 per cent of them who are full-time students, either at school, university or some other educational institution, according to the data.
That’s also normal.
Back in the mid-1980s, around a third or even less of jobless youth were in full-time education.
But with tertiary education becoming almost universal these days, the proportion is now trending fairly consistently at over 55 per cent and has reached as high at 66 per cent, or two in three.
That might appear a bit odd, given that being a full-time student and being unemployed might seem to be incompatible.
But they are not, according to the standard international definition of unemployment used by the ABS.
If someone is actively looking for a job, even if it’s only a three-hour shift at a fast food outlet on the weekend, and they weren’t working in the week the ABS asks about when they call for their survey, then they’re unemployed.
Even if they do mix their job-hunting with some diligent study.
AAP gsj/g
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