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Aust'n school leavers take 10 years to find secure, stable jobs: youth study

Xinhua, December 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

Young Australians are taking up to 10 years to find a secure and stable job after leaving school, according to a new report released by the University of Melbourne.

The group known as Gen Y (those people born between the early 1980s and early 2000s) often hold down precarious and insecure jobs after leaving school, which is due in part to short-term contracts, part-time work and their mixing of work and study.

The head of the Life Patterns project, Australia's most comprehensive youth trends study, Professor Johanna Wyn, said on Thursday that this age group were finding it much harder than previous generations to find work after school.

"It is getting harder and harder for young people to find permanent full-time work because of the rise of short-term contracts, part-time work and their mixing of work and study."

"Rather than getting a full-time permanent job in their early twenties as their parents may have done, this generation expects an unstable path through the job market," Wyn said.

This year seven out of 10 Gen Y participants who have a job worked irregular hours, and in the last five years 68 percent have already had two to five jobs.

This can affect their lives for a long term, impacting on their career and family planning.

"Because of the unstable job market young people are cautious about planning their work or family lives too far in the future," Professor Wyn said.

But these young adults are finding other ways of contributing to society according to the study, with participants of the study able to generate their own sense of social community.

"Rather than relying on their career for meaning, young people are also building meaning in their lives by living ethically and building meaningful relationships," Wyn said.

Life Patterns is Australia's longest running study of the lives of young people. It began in 1991 and in 2006 recruited a Gen Y cohort who were in their final year of secondary school. This Gen Y group is now around 27 years old. Endit