'Solving' unemployment : an analysis of two Australian policy initiatives

There has been a narrative about unemployment in Australian politics that has a lot of bipartisan support, notwithstanding the current rhetoric about which side of politics has the superior view in terms of industrial relations. Essentially this narrative focuses on two main initiatives, viz. grow the economy at a sufficient rate and unemployment will cease to become a problem, and for those who find themselves unemployed put in place suitable training programs to assist these unemployed workers back into work. This paper considers whether the underlying presumptions for both of these policy initiatives (which effectively have bipartisan agreement) do have solid support or indeed are in fact correct.