Social Ventures Australia (SVA) welcomes $950,000 allocated in the Federal budget, to its venture partner the Beacon Foundation, as part of the $330m Youth Employment Strategy.

Beacon’s Real Futures Generation program works with young people in disadvantaged communities to develop their confidence, knowledge and ability to step into their first job with a clear understanding of the career path they are on.

The Real Futures Generation program has proven results. Through it, Beacon have worked with 83 schools and 60 businesses and engaged 5814 young people in school to work curriculum activities. The program includes providing insight into a real job via a site visit, a classroom visit from a person in industry, or work experience. In the last year, Beacon have also prepared and placed 210 young people into real jobs.

Youth unemployment is currently at crisis levels with prolonged high levels creating the risk of a lost generation of young people who remain disengaged from the workforce.

SVA welcomes the measures the Government has funded, including reinstating the Youth Transitions program. This recognises the benefits of keeping young people at risk of disengaging from work or study involved in the community. In addition, the Government has provided $106m for intensive support to vulnerable jobseekers including:

• disadvantaged young people with mental health issues
• vulnerable young migrants seeking an employment pathway and
• $14m to keep early school leavers engaged in work or study.

SVA believes these three measures will deliver substantial change to the lives of disadvantaged young Australians.

SVA supports moving the waiting period to access unemployment benefits from six months to four weeks and the age at which this waiting period would apply from 30 years to 25 years. This is an important step in ensuring the safety net available to jobseekers supports their search for employment and is a welcome reprieve for those facing real challenges during any period of unemployment.

SVA remains concerned that the eligibility age for Newstart will rise from 22 years to 25 years. This would see more unemployed young Australians living on the lower youth allowance rates and add to the barriers they may face in finding a job.

SVA also welcomes the Government’s youth employment strategy to consolidate wage subsidies into a $1.2b fund which creates greater flexibility for employers to access wage subsidies for different cohorts of disadvantaged job-seekers.

SVA has practical experience of how to tackle youth unemployment effectively. We are working, in a consortium with Brotherhood of St Laurence, Mission Australia and Jesuit Social Services, supported by the Business Council of Australia to undertake a pilot, the Industry Employment Initiative (IEI), on how to better engage national employers in the national employment services system. The pilot has a specific focus on young unemployed Australians and has highlighted the real barriers they are facing.

In addition to this and our ongoing support for organisations like the Beacon Foundation, we welcome recognition of the need for more concerted action to address youth unemployment.

Support needed for Impact Investing

While SVA is pleased at the announcements made in the Youth Employment Strategy, Impact Investing market development has not received support from the Federal Government in this budget. Rob Koczkar commented:

‘The time has come to break the mould in social policy, to address entrenched disadvantage. Impact investing is a critical piece of the reform puzzle required to create real change. Government can and should play a critical role in assisting this development’

SVA is pleased to see support for small business and entrepreneurs included in the Federal budget and encourages the government to extend that support to social enterprises and social entrepreneurs.

With support from Government and the capacity that Government-encouraged private capital can provide through Impact Investing, more social entrepreneurs like Scott Harris from the Beacon Foundation can deliver new and innovative approaches that deliver real change and measurable outcomes for people facing a life of entrenched disadvantage.