Australia has a youth employment problem. But perhaps more concerning is that we’re diagnosing it incorrectly.
For years, youth unemployment and underemployment have often been framed as questions of motivation, work ethic or commitment.
Yet new evidence from AKG’s First Job to Future Career: Perspectives from Youth and Employers report suggests the reality is quite different.
The challenge is not a lack of commitment among young Australians — it is the structural barriers preventing them from fully participating in the workforce.
A perception gap
AKG’s survey revealed a striking disconnect between what employers perceive and what young people experience.
Employers identified their biggest hiring challenges as lack of commitment, differing expectations about work, lack of experience and reliability concerns.
Young people, however, told a different story. Their most common barriers to employment were transport issues, mental health and social isolation, low confidence, lack of local job opportunities and not having the right qualifications or certifications.
These are not indicators of unwillingness to work. They are barriers to accessing work.
A young person without reliable transport cannot simply choose to be more committed.
Someone struggling with mental health challenges or living in an area with limited job opportunities cannot overcome those obstacles through motivation alone.
Yet when structural barriers are misinterpreted as personal failings, solutions tend to focus on changing individual behaviour rather than fixing the systems that create disadvantage.
The result is lost economic potential.
The commitment myth
When young people are unable to secure stable employment, Australia loses productive capacity at a time when workforce participation and productivity matter more than ever.
Prolonged youth underemployment drives intergenerational inequality and entrenches financial distress, with 85% of young Australians already reporting financial hardship.
Perhaps the most revealing finding in the report challenges one of the most common assumptions about young workers.
AKG’s survey found 62% of employers cited a lack of commitment as their primary challenge with young hires.
However, 85% of surveyed young people expected to stay with their next employer for more than a year, with nearly half expecting to remain for between two and five years.
Far from seeking short-term arrangements, many are looking for stability and long-term career opportunities.
The problem is that the labour market often struggles to provide them.
Among employed young people, 79% wanted more hours or a transition to full-time work. At the same time, 84% of the employers surveyed reported that casual employees rarely or never move into permanent roles.
This reveals a structural mismatch.
Young people view casual work as a pathway to secure employment, while many workplaces use it as a long-term staffing model.
When progression opportunities are limited, workers can remain trapped in insecure employment regardless of their desire to build a career.
Read also: How misdiagnosed barriers lock young Australians in employment cycles
We need to rethink how employment support is designed – AKG advocates for a reframe based on employer co-design.
Instead of only engaging at the recruitment stage, businesses should partner with employment service providers earlier to shape pre-employment training and build a partnership approach to create employment pathways that better support youth and improve business outcomes.
Simultaneously, industry must provide predictable rosters in advance to mitigate transport issues, train frontline supervisors in mental health awareness, and build visible, structured progression pathways from seasonal, casual work into permanent careers.
Treating entry-level youth hiring as long-term workforce development is a smart investment to help drive Australia’s future prosperity.
Australia cannot afford to overlook the potential of a generation that wants to work, wants greater stability and wants to contribute.
If we continue to mistake structural barriers for a lack of commitment, we will keep designing solutions for the wrong problem — and continue paying the price in lost productivity, workforce shortages and unrealised potential.
The evidence is clear: the question is not whether young Australians are committed. The question is whether our systems, workplaces and policies are committed to removing the barriers standing in their way.
Karen Massier
Karen Massier is an Executive General Manager at AKG and has worked at the forefront of design and delivery of impactful employment and related services for over 25 years in both government and private sector.
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