One of Australia’s business leaders has championed the fight against unemployment as a means to improve national health outcomes and called on business to play a leading role.
Head of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Kate Carnell, this week said there were significant health savings to be made by helping unemployed people into work.
In a speech to the National Press Club in Canberra, she cited ABS statistics suggesting the long term unemployed were four times as likely as employed people to classify their health as only “fair” or “poor”. They were also twice as likely to be a current smoker and suffer back-pain and three times as likely to suffer from mental health issues.
With unemployment scaling a near 12-year high at 6.4 per cent and youth unemployment more than double that, Ms Carnell said Australia could not afford for this “vicious cycle” to continue.
Citing NATSEM research commissioned by Catholic Health Australia in 2012, Ms Carnell said a number of economic benefits would be gained from lifting the health status of low socio economic groups to the average health status of all Australians.
These included savings of $4bn in welfare support payments, $2.3bn in hospital expenditure and $273 million in Medicare services. In addition, $8bn in extra earnings would be created from a further 170,000 Australians entering the workforce.
She appealed to businesses to help shoulder the burden by taking on more Australians who were unemployed and seeking work.
“Government can’t be expected to do this alone, business also has a leading role. Increasing the hiring and retention of people who are unemployed or currently not participating offers considerable benefits to businesses and to the community,” she said.
“For this to occur, business must work with government and the broader community to remove impediments to work and to improve access and affordability of appropriate skills training to ensure people are work ready.”
She said Australia had a long way to go in terms of addressing youth disengagement and unemployment.
