According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), www.abs.gov.au “Long-term unemployment is defined as a duration of unemployment of 12 months or more”.

Australia’s current unemployment rate is 5.0% , according to the ABS. While unemployment sits at one of its lowest levels since 2012, there is an opposite trend for long term unemployment. The amount of Australians who have been unemployed for more than 2 years have hit the highest levels in the past 15 years.

A Report: ‘Faces of Unemployment’, released in September 2018, by the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) and Jobs Australia, finds the nation’s cohort of long-term unemployed has surged since the early 1990s. ACOSS Chief Executive Cassandra Goldie advised: “There is only one job available for every eight applicants who are unemployed or underemployed. It is clear the labour market in Australia is very tough for a person looking for paid work or more hours”. Says Goldie: “Things are even tougher for people who are unemployed, who are mainly searching for jobs at the lower-skilled end of the labour market.”

The Australian Human Rights Commission’s (AHRC) National Prevalence Survey of Age Discrimination in the Workplace Report 2015 found that of those who did not participate in the workforce in the last 2 years but would have liked to 1 in 5 (18%) reported that it was because their skills were not current.

When a person has been out of the job market for over 12 months, some of the major barriers they may face include recruiters questioning if their skills are outdated and whether they are able to successfully manage the transition back into the workforce. Compared to those who are unemployed for shorter periods of time, the long-term unemployed may find it difficult to overcome the negative perceptions of some employers. Unfortunately, due to these factors and as the research data suggests, the longer people are unemployed, the more their paid work prospects diminish.

An employment assessment performed by one of our Human Resources professionals can provide an expert recruitment opinion on your clients’ current work capacity, their realistic employment prospects into suitable employment and/or gaining employment in the open labour market, subsequent to an injury.

If you would like further information on this topic, or would you like further information about the reports that Flexi Personnel’s Employment Assessment team can provide, please contact Katherine Rintoule on 93609722 or find out more at Employment Assessment team website.