Unemployment in Australia

Sue Richardson

Unemployment is a scourge in countries at all levels of economic development. It brings poverty and despair and exclusion from the mainstream way of life. It stunts the development of children and generates conflict in the home. All market economies have some unemployment arising from the dynamic birth, growth, decline and death of firms and the changes in employment that follows. This frictional unemployment is tolerable. Unemployment does its greatest damage to the individual and her or his family when it persists for months or even years.

In what follows I will describe the overall unemployment picture, including the situation of some groups at particularly high risk of unemployment, then look at underemployment, and long term unemployment. I will distinguish the experiences of men and of women, and of youth and older workers.

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