An Indigenous Youth Employment roundtable was held last Friday in north Brisbane to talk about local solutions to improve employment participation and outcomes for young Indigenous Australians.
Minister for Indigenous Australians, the Hon Ken Wyatt AM MP, and Assistant Minister for Youth and Employment Services, the Hon Luke Howarth MP, met local Indigenous business and community leaders and employment service providers at North Lakes, in the Moreton Bay region.
Minister Wyatt said the roundtable, hosted by employment services provider Designer Life, brought the community together to talk about ideas to improve and increase opportunities for young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
“I thank the local Indigenous business and community leaders and employment providers for their commitment to helping young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in their community to get jobs, leadership and training opportunities,” Minister Wyatt said.
“It’s clear from my visit that the local community is passionate and focused on bringing about change, skilling young people for jobs now and into the future.”
Assistant Minister for Youth and Employment Services, the Hon Luke Howarth MP, said the Australian Government is investing in programs to improve the employability of both young people and Indigenous Australians, not just in Queensland, but around the country.
“By working together to find local solutions, we can continue to connect employers and young people and reduce youth unemployment which is about 13.9 per cent nationally.”
“We’re getting some great results through employment programs and training support like the PaTH program, jobactive, Transition to Work, Vocational Training and Employment Centres and ParentsNext,” Minister Howarth said.
“Nationally, we’ve registered more than 59,000 job placements for young Indigenous people through jobactive, and Transition to Work has helped more than 30,000 participants leading to more than 13,500 employment and education outcomes for Indigenous young people, but more can be done.
“PaTH has given more than 9,200 Indigenous young people Employability Skills Training and more than 11,500 Indigenous young people have got a job supported by a Youth Bonus Wage Subsidy”.
Minister Wyatt said these were just some of the ways the Australian Government was helping young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
“Our Government will continue to deliver against the updated National Agreement on Closing the Gap with the target to increase the proportion of young Indigenous Australians who are in employment, education or training to 67 per cent by 2031,” Minister Wyatt said.
