Catholic Online Forum

The correlation between the suicide and unemployment rates for men aged between 20 and 24 lends urgency to the debate over the role of government in the youth labour market. Lip service is paid to the notion that youth and trainee wages and conditions should have some flexi­bility, but in practice this is rarely the case.

There are something like 900,000 small businesses in Aus­tralia and most of their owners work 10 to 12-hour days, six or seven days a week. Each and every one of them would, I'm sure, love some help. However, employing people is no longer an option. It is complicated, expensive and fraught with danger.
And there is no point in looking to big business to solve the problem — they are actually spending big on new technology so they can cut their workforce numbers.
When I started in the home-building industry in 1973, Austra­lia was building more than 100,000 homes a year. Apprentices' wages were extremely low (less than 15 per cent of an adult wage) and were, for all intents and purposes, "deregulated". As a result, just about every tradesman had an apprentice and most (but not all) lads came from lower socio-eco­nomic areas. Those lads have now long forgotten their lean times as apprentices and are doing well. They realised they were investing in their own future.

Australia is still building more than 100,000 homes and yet you would be lucky to find an appren­tice anywhere.

(Excerpted from the article with same name by Mr. Bob Day AO. Mr. Bob Day AO is a businessman in South Australia. He is a former Liberal Party and Family First Party political candidate, and is the federal chairman of the Family First Party.)

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Tom

The industrial relation laws have created obstacles for employers to employ young apprentices.
The same for other workers, in general.

Thomas,

The most important single reason the Coalition lost the 2007 election was Work Choices. The Fair Work Act is a welcome improvement. No one would suggest Fair Work is perfect (least of all anyone involved in the trade union movement) but Work Choices was manifestly unjust.

You do recall, of course, that when it was introduced Work Choices was condemned as unjust and contrary to Catholic Social Teaching by that notorious radical, Cardinal Pell?

The main reason there are fewer apprentices today is that in the period you mentioned 85% left school at the end of Year 10, a good many of whom then took up apprenticeships. Only 15% continued to Year 12. (I was among that 15% - and when I entered university only 3% of Australians had done so.) The Hawke-Keating government was determined to alter this appalling state of affairs... and suceeded! By the time Paul Keating left office the figures had exactly reversed - only 15% now leave at the end of Year 10. That is why there are so few taking up apprenticeships. The vacancies are there, the opportunities are there.

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James Daly

"It is the Lord." (Jn 21:7)