YOUTH unemployment remains alarmingly high across the region according to a new report, but if New England and North West communities are to turn the troubling trend around, it could be a case of going back to basics.
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The Australian Local Government Association's (ALGA) annual State of the Regions report has just been released, a snapshot that has shown a widening gap in employment rates, household incomes and productivity between and within Australia's regions and cities.
According to the report, NSW Northern Inland, which includes the North West and New England, ranks ninth out of 67 in the highest unemployment rates, with 16.4 per cent of 15 to 24-year-olds without a job, a significant increase from the 2011 rate of 12.9 per cent.
Moree Plains Shire mayor Katrina Humphries said it was an issue across the nation and an indication that the new approach to school leavers and apprenticeships was failing the community.
"School's not for everyone ... but (in more recent years) the emphasis has been on staying until Year 12," she said.
"In the past, those young people left in Year 10 and went and did an apprenticeship. They weren't earning a fortune, but by the time they turned 20, they had a qualification and were earning real money."
The apprenticeships opportunities weren't there anymore either, Cr Humphries said.
"Governments ... have made it so difficult for people to employ apprentices - when you do that, (high youth unemployment) is what happens," she said.
Cr Humphries said she was speaking from experience on several fronts - having been an early school leaver herself and running businesses that employed apprentices.
She left school in Year 10 and went to the then TAFE-equivalent in Moree, undertaking secretarial studies - "and I've never been out of a job since".
"I speak from the heart. We've also had a lot of apprentices over the years, but we stopped taking them on because it became so hard," Cr Humphries said.
She also believes youth need to accept a few realities associated with being a young jobseeker.
"You have to be prepared to start at the bottom and work your way up."
The Australian Local Government Association said the report illustrated a concerning story on the inequity across some of the economies in Australia's regions.
"What we're seeing is that the country's prosperity is concentrated in isolated pockets of Australia, with many regions finding it difficult to plug into this prosperity due to insufficient telecommunications and transport infrastructure," Dr Peter Brain, the report's co-author, said.
ALGA president Cr Troy Pickard, said was clear from the report that a definitive and comprehensive regional development policy was now crucial, with more strategic stimulus needed from the government to help boost all of Australia's regions.
"The parties must tell us how they plan to address these issues, how they will accomplish a more even spread of prosperity for our communities and how they will facilitate better co-ordination between the three levels of government to assist Australia's struggling regions," he said.
