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. The Regional Jobs Package (RJP) was a pilot labour market program introduced in June 2005 by the Victorian Government as a strategic response to two important issues facing regional Victoria - youth unemployment and skill shortages across a number of key industries. Overseen by the Department for Victorian Communities (DVC), fourteen employment and training providers from across the state implemented the pilot over a period of twelve months. The Institute of Community Ethnicity and Policy Alternatives (ICEPA) from Victoria University (VU) was engaged to evaluate the program. A mix of methods were used to identify the outcomes achieved and the benefits gained by young people and regional communities through their participation in the program. This article reports on the key evaluation findings, discusses the design and scope of RJP as a model of labour market program delivery and comments on the value of this type of government intervention in the regional labour market.