Australia’s Minister for Youth Richard Colbeck, 62, declined a request for an interview. In an emailed statement, a spokesman said the government is “aware young Australians are very concerned about their employment prospects”. He pointed to pre-Covid training initiatives “focused on giving young Australians the right assistance and encouragement to learn new skills, become job ready, get a job and stay in a job.”
Matthews said that he’s been able to live with his parents and now that the economy is opening up, he’s managed to pick up a couple of shifts at a restaurant he worked at previously. Still, he’s aware how vulnerable his generation is.
“I’m not really future-proof at the moment,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of savings to fall back on.”
Jackson, the economist, put it more bluntly: “Generational scarring -– leaving young people outside the labor market for long periods of time -- makes them less likely to get better jobs in the future,” he said. “It’s a ticking time bomb.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.