Maps unemployment 'hotspots' for those aged 15 to 24 across Australia – with some regions grappling with rates above 20 per cent.

Summary
The report card on youth unemployment in Australia is mixed: there has been improvement in the overall rate but this also masks the reality that clusters of high youth unemployment persist – stubbornly and unevenly – across the nation.

The malaise of unemployment persists in many rural and regional locations. Two years after the Brotherhood of St Laurence first identified ‘hotspots’ from Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force survey data, a new analysis identifies four regional areas where youth unemployment rates cluster above 20 per cent. For the worst performer – in the outback of Queensland, including the mining hub of Mount Isa – the rate reached 28 per cent.

The national youth unemployment rate of 15–24 year olds, at 12.2 per cent (trend rate in January 2016), remains well above the levels before the global financial crisis of 2008, when it dipped below 9 per cent. More welcome news, though, can be found in tracking the decline in youth unemployment from the high in December 2014 of almost 14 per cent.

Overall, in early 2016 more than 258,000 young people in the labour market are still unable to find a job.