While all of Kellie's points are valid, the huge elephant we're stumbling around in the dark is the sad simple fact that the jobs are gone.

And they're not coming back - at least not in our lifetimes.

We stopped making things and started getting other countries to make them because their wages were cheaper.

Then we stopped talking to customers because a machine could do it instead and machines don't demand award rates.

Then we realised that an underemployed casualised workforce could be much better controlled and intimidated than a permanent workforce made uppity by job security. And casuals don't show up in unemployment numbers.

Then we realised that we didn't need people hardly at all in order to make money. All we needed was a giant ethernet and some creative investment scheming to generate billion-dollar capital gains for people who already have billions of dollars, and all for about 2 minutes work.

And at each step of the way, our governments did the bidding of their billionaire masters, who hated all those restrictions that were forcing them to put people before profit. One by one the restrictions were dutifully lifted.

And if you don't believe just how bad this wonderful globalised world of ours is getting, have a look at some freelance job websites. There are people there with higher degrees and decades of workforce experience who are making job bids that pay less than $10 an hour - and I'm talking about the US and UK, not India or the Philipinnes.

No change of government and no fancy government work initiatives are going to reverse over three decades of neoliberal destruction of the global workforce. If there is any hope at all for a working future for today's young people, it lies in people-led movements to overturn our neoliberal conditioning that only business creates jobs. In fact, business is the natural enemy of employment.

A sterling post, Killarney!

Kevin (Berlesconi) Rudd should stop waffling on about how important our youth are whilst he blows all the money we'd set aside for them. He'd be much more suitable to exploit his looks by joint the Southpark crowd.

Its not just youth unemployment, its also the exploitation of young employees. No-one wants to offer them a full time job, even if they are capable and available. My friend's daughter finished school last year and wants to work and save money this year. She found part time work with a national electronics retailer but is always offered different hours each week at different times. She works between 9 and 20 hours a week. She is expected to be available to fill in at short notice or to accept without complaint that she is suddenly not required. She would love to work full time, they have the work, and still advertise for staff, but will not offer her longer hours, always juggling the roster amongst equally frustrated young employees. So she has found a second and third job in local restaurants, has told the retailer that she needs to be available for those jobs from 5.00pm, and repeatedly gets rostered on late on those evenings 'by mistake'. It is made perfectly clear to her that she counts for nothing and is just a replaceable cog in their money-making machine. Its a pretty depressing start to a working life.

Even the unions are out to make it harder for Aussie youth to get jobs, by making them more expensive to employ. The Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association and other unions representing large numbers of young workers, such as the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, are seeking to extend full adult pay rates to teenage workers across the economy if a retail industry test case before the Fair Work Commission is successful.

Raycom,
Our resident unionist Belly would be the best person to ask about that.