This isn’t going to surprise any of you, but for young people in Australia – particularly those living in the big cities – finding gainful employment is a bloody tough task at the best of times.
And it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, too. The harder it gets to actually find a job, the harder people think it is to actually find a job.
That’s not just mere speculation. That’s now concrete fact.
Young people in Sydney have been found to be twice as likely to state that their age is a significant barrier to finding work than the rest of the world, according to a new study.
The figures, compiled by The Economist Intelligence Unit for their Accelerated Pathways project, found that Sydney is the worst city in the world, when it comes to young age being a perceived factor in job hunting. In fact, 1 in 5 Sydney people are likely to state this, compared to the global average of 1 in 10.
However, of all the global cities rated in the study (some 35, from a broad cross-section of socio-economic climates), Sydney rated ninth in terms of cities with the best economic prospects for young people – a list populated largely by North American cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, and ladder-leader Toronto.
The study also found that Sydneysiders were among the least willing to migrate for work opportunities within the next five years, but fell below the global average of young people still living at home with their parents.
Despite their top ten ranking for economic opportunities, Sydney’s young people are still less optimistic about their own futures than the global average.
This is not a product of what older generations will inevitably call laziness, rather a product of Australia weathering the Global Financial Crisis far better than other countries.
Leo Abruzzese, the global director of public policy at The Economist, explains thusly.
“Almost without exception the most optimistic people were from emerging-market cities. Many of those countries are growing quite rapidly.”
“People are feeling more confident because they have opportunities that their parents didn’t have 10-20 years ago.”
And as for how Sydney fared as an individual city? In terms of supporting its young people, not so great.
“The city itself does not have as many youth-focused programs as other cities we looked at.”
It fell way down the list in areas such as cost of living (where it placed 34th), policies to support youth (26th), and employment growth (29th).
The long and short of it? Sydney does have more than its fair share of economic opportunity. But that is an egg that is fucking hard to crack. And for young people, it can border on the dang-near impossible.
Photo: UniversalImagesGroup via Getty Images.
via SMH.
