Proposed national cadetship program could avert youth jobs crisis

In a scheme inspired by the German vocational education system, the proposed National Job Cadet Program would firstly extend apprenticeship arrangements into higher-skilled fields outside the trades.

A second stream of the program would support employers to hire recent graduates who have some qualifications or experience and allow them to enroll in a short course or microcredential while on the job.

Professor of economics and Victoria University vice-chancellor Peter Dawkins, who was a co-author of the paper, said it was a good time for a program like this since many young people had been pushed out of the labour market at the onset of the pandemic and will be graduating into an extremely difficult labour market due to the recession.

"Even before COVID, young people were not faring very well in the labour market as it was. It was a significant problem that needed some attention and now, its just been made that much worse," he said.

Co-author and Mitchell Institute fellow Peter Hurley said the German dual-training model of workplace-based learning kept youth unemployment down, especially in times of crisis.

"Part of the other aim of this is to get people into those growing occupations and growing industries so that they're able to... get a foothold on the jobs ladder," Dr Hurley said.

The authors propose the government provide an incentive for employers of between $14,000 and $28,000 per year depending on the cadet and the employer, which would align to the support the federal government already provides as part of the JobSeeker payment and its supporting apprentices and trainees initiative.

Some of the occupations that could be part of the cadet program include software programmers, advertising and marketing professionals, human resource managers and engineers.

The paper suggests the cost to government of providing 50,000 cadetships would total $1 billion per year but this would be offset by an increase in tax revenue and savings in other areas, such as youth allowance.

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The initiative has been supported by peak industry association the Australian Industry Group.

While there is already a push towards building work experience into university degrees, known as work integrated learning, Professor Dawkins said the National Job Cadet Program would ensure more students could benefit from gaining practical experience.

"Finding enough opportunities for all the young people that would benefit from it, it's very hard to do, whereas by providing an incentive to influence this greatly increases the chances of making it work more systematically."

The authors have been in discussions with officials and politicians at a state and federal level and hope the proposal will be discussed by national cabinet.