Youth as a reserve army of labour: Australia’s regional unemployment conundrum

ABSTRACT

This article seeks to apply Marx’s Reserve Army of Labour theory to explain youth labour market trends with a case study of the Illawarra region of New South Wales, Australia. Statistical analysis of regional ABS labour force data reveals both persistently high youth unemployment rates as well as dominant cyclical activity. Dominant neoclassical economic theory, which implies that any unemployment observed should be infrequent and quickly solved by market forces, fails to adequately account for our observations. In contrast, our findings are congruent with the reserve army and segmented labour market theories. The article contributes new understandings of Marxist concepts to an important regional issue of contemporary policy relevance.

KEYWORDS:

• Australia
• labour
• reserve army of labour
• unemployment
• youth

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Scott Burrows

Dr Scott Burrows teaches and researches at the University of Wollongong. He completed his PhD in 2014. His research examines contemporary labour markets with a particular focus on precarious youth employment. He has published in the Alternative Law Journal, Capital and Class, the Economic and Labour Relations Review, Illawarra Unity, the Journal of Australian Political Economy, Journal of Sociology and Work, Employment and Society.

Martin O’Brien

Dr Martin O’Brien is a labour economist in the Discipline of Economics, University of Wollongong. Since obtaining his PhD in 2004 from the University of Newcastle examining the research topic of older male labour force participation in Australia, he has published numerous articles on related topics in outlets such as the Australian Journal of Labour Economics, International Labour Review, Journal of Industrial Relations, Journal of Australian Political Economy, and Australian Bulletin of Labour. He has also published other labour research, including that on the youth labour market in the Journal of Industrial Relations, International Employment Relations Review, and Journal of Asian Economics. His more recent research has returned to the youth labour market as well as studying the post-redundancy outcomes for ex-BlueScope workers at Port Kembla, New South Wales.