Declan Myers has been looking for full-time work since he finished school half way through year 11 last year.
The 18-year-old works an average of six hours a day, two days a week, in a retail job and lives with his parents in Springwood in the Blue Mountains. But with his parents planning to move interstate within 12 months, Declan wants to work more hours so he can live independently.
Declan Myers wants to work more hours so he can live independently. Credit:Wolter Peeters
“I would like to work in a car dealership in sales. It is pretty hard because everyone is asking for work experience," he says.
His experience is not uncommon. A sharp jump in underemployment for young workers combined with an increased prevalence of part-time work has sparked calls for action from policymakers to help match job seekers with full-time work.
A Brotherhood of St Laurence analysis of official statistics shows that, while underemployment had remained relatively steady in the 10 years since the global financial crisis for people aged 25 and older, it had risen steeply for those aged 20 to 24 from 9.1 per cent to 16 per cent this year.
Underemployment refers to workers who have part-time work but want more hours. The data also shows that 44 per cent of young people aged 20 to 24 are now in a part-time job, compared with 10 per cent in 1978. More than one in three employed young women and one in five employed young men were in part-time jobs.
"This suggests a powerful reshaping of Australia's youth labour market over the past four decades," the report says.
"The long-term shift away from stable, full-time employment and into part-time work ushers in a disturbing era of insecurity for Australia's emerging generation: for tens of thousands of young Australians, their first 'real' job is likely to be a survival job - and a part-time one at that."
Conny Lenneberg, executive director of the Brotherhood of St Laurence, said young Australians faced challenges their parents and grandparents could not have imagined.
"The combination of youth underemployment and unemployment poses enormous risks, especially for disadvantaged young people," she said.
We know that to get better outcomes for young people we need to be working with local employers and tap into community efforts to enable them to find sustainable jobs
Conny Lenneberg
"We know that to get better outcomes for young people, we need to be working with local employers and tap into community efforts to enable them to find sustainable jobs."
The report said the trends reflected the shift to a service economy, with jobs particularly concentrated in the hospitality, retail, beauty therapy and fitness industries and among personal care givers and labourers.
The report's findings back separate research from Jeff Borland at the University of Melbourne that found almost half the increase in the share of part-time employment was in retail trade, accommodation and food services.
Ms Lennebert said policy makers could improve Australia’s young people negotiate the world of work.
"As a start, it’s time to offer all job hunters aged 15 to 25 a specialist youth employment service, rather than the nation’s still fragmented response," she said.
"Amid big structural shifts in the globalised economy, we must also stop blaming job hunters for the fraught situation they find themselves in.”
Damien Gibson, 21, who lives in Frankston, Victoria, gets a maximum of four hours a day in his retail job.
Damien GibsonCredit:Simon Schluter
"I have to live at home but would like to have my own place," he said.
"I'd like more hours of work so I can do that. It is very hard paying for petrol and being able to buy food."
Anna Patty is Workplace Editor for The Sydney Morning Herald. She is a former Education Editor, State Political Reporter and Health Reporter. Her reports on inequity in schools funding led to the Gonski reforms and won her national awards. Her coverage of health exposed unnecessary patient deaths at Campbelltown Hospital and led to judicial and parliamentary inquiries. At The Times of London, she exposed flaws in international medical trials.