How Young People Are Faring 2005

How Young People are Faring 2005 is the seventh report in this annual series. It provides point in time data for three main measures of youth participation in learning or work:

  • teenagers not in full-time education and not in full-time employment
  • unemployment rates among young people and 25 to 54 year olds
  • young adults who have completed Year 12 or a post-secondary qualification.

Highlights in the 2005 report include:

  • In May 2005, 85.1 percent of Australian teenagers were in full-time study or fulltime work, while 14.9 percent or 208,400 teenagers were not. These proportions have varied only slightly since the recession of the early 1990s
  • Educational attainment is improving: in 2004, 80 percent of teenagers had completed secondary school or a Certificate II or higher compared with 75 percent in 2002
  • 84,400 (29 percent of) teenagers who left school in 2003 were not in study and were either working part-time, unemployed, or not in the labour force in May 2004
  • Females are more likely to experience a troubled transition from school than male school leavers despite a higher rate of completing Year 12 and higher participation rates in post-school education
  • In May 2005, unemployment rates for teenagers were three and a half times higher than for adults aged 25 to 64 years; and unemployment rates for 20 to 24 year olds were twice those of older adults
  • The proportion of teenage apprentices taking up trade apprenticeships increased markedly from 2003 to 2004.

icon How Young People Are Faring 2005 (1.07 MB)
icon How Young People are Faring 2005: A commentary. Dr John Spierings (71.71 kB)
icon Press Release (52 kB)

January 2005

Author:

  • Mike Long – Monash University-ACER Centre for the Economics of Education and Training (CEET)