COVID-19 and Potential Impact on South Australia’s Population - An Insight into South Australia’s employment for the youth

As the analysis in Appendix A shows, full-time employment for 15- to 24-year-olds started to decline with the GFC – a process that persisted for over a decade, which points to underlying structural factors contributing to this trend.1 The share of employed 15- to 24-year-olds in full-time employment fell from 52 per cent in 2007 to 41 per cent in 2017. [...] The Immediate Impact of COVID-19 Turning to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on employment outcomes by age group, Figure 3 shows the percentage change in the unemployment rate by 5-year age group between the March and June quarters of 2020, and through the year to the March quarter 2021. [...] In addition, the growth rate has been lower than the growth rate of the total South Australian population for those aged 20 to 24 and 25 to 29, while the growth rate for those who are 30- to 34-years-old has surpassed the growth in total population. [...] By 2020, the share of full-time employment for those aged 15 to 24 years had fallen to 39 per cent, while for those in the age group 25 to 34 years the share of full-time employment had fallen to 71 per cent. [...] The relative growth rates resulted in a decline from 81 per cent in 2001 to 70 per cent in 2019 of the share of total enrolments held by domestic students and an increase in the share held by international students from 19 per cent to 30 per cent during this time.