Two birds with one social policy stone: youth employment and regional skills shortages in Australia

In June 2005, the Victorian State Government introduced the Regional Jobs Package (RJP) – a twelve month pilot program that attempted to kill two social policy problems with one stone. The problems were youth unemployment and skills shortages in regional areas of Victoria, Australia. The intention of the RJP was to create a ‘win-win’ outcome. If young unemployed people could be matched with jobs in skill shortage areas, this would both increase employment and reduce skill shortages. The Regional Jobs Package was particularly targeted towards young people experiencing barriers in the labour market. This article reports on an evaluation of the program and overall, the RJP had a high success rate of placing young people in employment in areas of skills shortage. It was clear, however, that the program was more successful for some groups than others. Most notably, young women and people from CALD backgrounds were under-represented within the program