Unemployment may increase the difficulties. Parents who have expected reduced financial responsibility for their older children, and gradual separation from them, find they have to adjust to a different reality. Young people have to face being dependent for longer. The choice for young people is often poverty if they remain at home and poverty if they go. We also have very clear evidence of the close relationship between unemployment and youth homelessness.
Some young people have no way of relieving their poverty, no fall- back position at all.
The 1992 Federal Budget contained some important initiatives aimed at tackling youth unemployment, many of which were originally announced as part of the July 1992 Youth Package. The emphasis was on job creation and education and training, with some minor adjustments to income support regulations. A special program aimed at assisting young homeless people into open employment has also been funded for a two-year period. JPET will fund around 30 projects in order to trial different strategies and approaches to assist young homeless people into open employment, with an emphasis on linking personal support, accommodation support and training support. In the restructuring of the labour market which has taken place over recent years, job losses for young people have been particularly severe.